Analysis Of A Good Man Is Hard To Find

n the Flannery O’Connor’s short story, “A Good Man is Hard to Find” we find out that the title indicates of what the story is about. The title actually came from the lyrics of a song written by Eddie Green in 1918. The title of “A Good Man is Hard to Find” by Flannery O’Conner is quite ironic really. The reader expects to eventually find a good man in the story, but is quite surprised at the ending of the story. The title "A Good Man is Hard to Find" is expressed clearly in this story by introducing a variety of male personalities that all have one thing in common, they are not truly good men.

Exploring the idea that all men are born sinners, O’Connor demonstrates immoral indulgences entertained by various characters. Readers are introduced to grandmother, an elderly woman whose consistent unscrupulous behavior exhibits her inner motives. Grandmother uses subtle, indirect confrontation to get her way until she is faced with The Misfit, a runaway criminal who believes that crime is a justifiable. In “A Good Man Is Hard To Find,” Flannery O’Connor uses characterization to display a loss of morals, imagery to portray evil in society, and symbolism to emphasize the struggle of obtaining grace to prove how life is nihilistic without religion.

Reading Flannery O’Connor short story “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” I thought about how different she is from my grandmother. My grandmother is wise, caring and is also a Christian. She is a very hard worker, puts her family first, and provides for her children and grandchildren when we are in a rough spot. My grandmother is currently taking care of her brother who has had a stroke, as well as her son. In this story, the grandmother is deceitful, very selfish, and was an inconvenience for her family.

In “A Good Man is Hard to Find” the author, Flannery O’Connor uses ingenious foreshadowing, characterization, and her southern religious personality to depict the mysterious ways that God is the ultimate controller of human beings.

In O’Connor’s short story, “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” the setting contributes to the reader's understanding of Bailey's out of tune family. We can assume the story took place in the post-war mid century era given the fact that O’Connor wrote this story in 1953 and when the grandmother says, “the way Europe acted you would think we were made of money” (O’Connor). During the 1940’s and 1950’s the backbone of the American dream was “hard work, family values, and hope” (Desmond). Families from back then were big on respect and took family time seriously. When comparing a traditional mid century family to Bailey's family there is a distinct difference that allows us to label them as a dysfunctional family. Although we do not get a look into the family's work ethic, we do get a close enough look to see their lack of family values. Throughout the story there are several times where the family reveals that they are clearly flawed with the words they choose to say or simply with their actions.

"A Good Man is Hard to find" (written in 1953), without a doubt is also her most shocking. This story is full of suspense and at the same time disturbing, the author makes the readers’ questions the good and evil, morality and immorality, and faith and doubts.

In "A Good Man is Hard to Find," Flannery O'Connor illustrates a southern family's vacation to Florida, but the actual adventure takes place inside the lives of the characters. O'Connor makes a direct comparison between the criminal known as The Misfit and the grandmother, explaining how good and evil are not strictly limited to one individual or social code. The grandmother and the Misfit struggle with maintaining a constant, stable state of character, which represents the shift between good and evil. These two characters are socially defined on a surface level as being either a good or a bad person; however, these characters have a deeper meaning, as they portray traits that would least be expected by the audience. O'Connor develops and shows the changes in the characters as they face challenges, and suggest that one is not a good man simply because he says, "Jesus, Jesus, Jesus" (O'Connor). The grandmother comes to realize that life is not all about putting on a show, and The Misfit is luckily her surprising means of grace.

The Author of “A Good Man is Hard to find” is Flannery O’Connor. As unique as this title may be, O'Connor didn't develop the title "A Good Man is Hard to Find." It's really the title verse of a song written and performed by Eddie Green back in 1918(Desmond 129). Christianity is the main subject in most of Flannery O'Connor's story’s. She stated that she writes that way because she is a true Catholic. To understand her stories, you must apply her Christian faith, or you will not be able to comprehend her stories (Bandy 107). In “A Good Man is Hard to Find” the focus is on individuals needing salvation and the violence that they experience which awakens them to that need. It frequently takes one single disaster to make somebody aware to profound issues. With regards to catastrophe in someone’s life, it sometimes uncovers a spiritual lesson that someone may benefit from. That indeed described the mission that the grandma takes in "A Good Man Is Hard to Find." It’s very important to read this story considering O'Connor's Christian faith and to seek the message demonstrated by the characters and their encounters. In Flannery O'Connor's short story, "A Good Man is Hard to Find”, the grandmother's journey from being controlling and selfish to graceful symbolizes a Christian's journey toward salvation.

“A Good Man Is Hard to Find” was written by Flannery O’Connor. Flannery O'Connor was an American writer and essayist. O’Connor is mainly known for her short stories and the short story that she is mainly known for is “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” which was published in 1953. In O’Connor’s short story, “A Good Man is hard to find” shows us about the character’s religious beliefs and the outcome of a grandmother’s selfishness.

In Flannery O’Connor’s short story, “A Good Man is Hard to Find”, is based on a southern family who takes a vacation to Florida. One question that comes up in the story is what’s the meaning of a good man and how there is only a few left in civilization. There is a vain and devious grandmother, her son Bailey who is very reserved, his submissive wife and baby, and their ill-mannered children, John Wesley and June Star. Many of the characters in the story see themselves as a good person based on their own moral code that they stand by. These moral codes which are deeply flawed, leaving each character blinded by their own self virtue.

A “Good Man is Hard to Find” by Flannery O’Connor is a short story about a family that is taking a vacation to Florida but never actually makes it there. The family is faced with a huge conflict involving how the grandmother’s hypocrisy and dishonesty, which is foreshadowed throughout the entire story, leads to an unfortunate domino effect of events that eventually lead up to each of them getting executed by criminals that escaped from prison.

In “A Good Man Is Hard To Find” written by Flannery O’Connor, the reader is introduced to a family that faces most people's worst fear--the relinquishment of one's life. Despite knowing there was a malicious criminal who had escaped prison, Bailey, the father of the family, insisted on taking his family to Florida. Bailey’s mother, the most selfish characters in this story, would cause the horrifying ending for the family. The grandmother is in this story believes to be a classy lady and that she is, overall, a better person than every other character, since they were not living up to the standards she had set for her perception of what it meant to be,“good.” The thematic concept introduced to the reader, focuses on how the judgement of others can hinder a person's ability to self analyze. O’Connor emphasizes the Grandmother’s need to serve as the judge in the story, regardless of the fact that she herself had proven to be a selfish and deceiving person, thus creating a hypocritical situation. In this short story, the grandmother calls her grandchildren bad, yet praises Red Sam for being a “good” man; she tries to convince the Misfit of being a righteous man although he is actually a criminal; lastly, she paints a picture of herself as an exemplary person, yet arguably, based on facts detailed in the story, she is the least noble character.

`A Good Man is Hard to Find is a short story by ______ that tells the story of a family who that goes awry in the most devastating way. The story opens with a family consisting of a mother, a father, two children, and (to their dismay) a grandmother-and her uninvited cat- as they are preparing to embark on their road trip. In the beginning of the story, the family is packing for their trip to Florida. The grandmother makes no effort to hide the fact that she does not want to go from the beginning and, as a result, annoys the father with stories of a criminal named ‘The Misfit’ who is also heading to Florida. Though the father ignores her, she continues to list reasons why they should not go, but to no avail since that is where they end up going. Before they reach their destination, however, the grandmother is proven right and they bump into The Misfit as a result of an accident caused by the grandmother. The leads to an interesting conversation regarding morality between The Misfit and the grandmother. It can be assumed that this chance meeting was foreshadowed in the test when the grandmother first mentions him. Had she not been so aggravating in the beginning maybe her family would have taken her warnings into consideration, but it can be inferred that because she was already making herself a nuisance, that her family chose to ignore her. Additionally, the fact that she states that the children have already seen Florida and that she wouldn’t take her children to Florida

“A Good Man is Hard to Find” began with a family of five and their grandmother getting ready to go on a vacation. At this point in the story I did not have any negative opinions on any of the characters, I only really liked the mother and the children. From the very beginning we see that the children do not like where they come, but love to travel and see things that are new and different. While their grandmother enjoyed the ride and the scenery no matter where she was. At this point in the story we really don’t know much about the mother and father. As the story progressed we continued to learn a lot about these family members, and throughout the entire story I felt positively about all these characters. One character that I did think negatively about, when we first met was Red Sammy Butts when we first met him I did not really like him but for the short time he was in the story I grew kind of fond of him.

Dysfunctional families come and go however, a grandmother that is “always right” has never costed a family so much. “A Good Man is Hard to Find” by Flannery O’Connor is a story about a family on a trip to Florida, but the grandmother has to have it her way and go to Tennessee and see relatives. During their drive the grandmother recalls an old house, later realizing it is in a different state, their car rolls once into the ditch and the unfortunate occurs when The Misfit finds them. The unnamed grandmother in the short story is one who gets what she wants, considers herself a “lady”, and is very selfish.