Analysis Of 'A Good Man Is Hard To Find'

A seemingly innocent family vacation can turn into a disaster if the members of the family only care about themselves. In the story “A Good Man Is Hard To Find” by Flannery O’Connor, a self-absorbed Grandmother, too consumed with her own opinions, fails to address the views, feelings and overall well being of others. Her family is not much different in their self-interested ways. This leads them straight to the Misfit whose childhood trauma has caused him to grow up into a damaged individual. The Misfit does not believe in the Grandmother’s religious beliefs and she ultimately cannot reach out and help him. The characters get themselves into a predicament for living in the Id

At the end of the story, the grandmother only pleads for her life and never for her son Bailey or his family. “You wouldn’t shoot a lady, would you?” (O’Connor 192).The mother never showed no remorse of her son’s death even after the other two men came back with Bailey’s shirt and then took his wife and daughter. She never pleaded for the men to stop and spare their lives. The daughter June Starr selfish characters are observed when she believes her way of living is right by stating to Red Sammy’s wife “I wouldn’t live in a broken-down place like this for a million bucks! (O’Connor 189). For a very young girl she carried an arrogant attitude that was never fixed by her parents.

In 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.

Flannery O’Connor gave a talk about “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” in 1963 at Hollins College, Virginia, which was published as the essay, “The Element of Suspense In ‘A Good Man Is Hard to Find.’” In this

When reading “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” my foremost impression is that it’s a very suspenseful story. The writing has a sort of still and detached feeling to it that makes the reader feel like an outsider. While character thoughts are occasionally stated, motivations aren’t openly shown and it’s hard to find much character development unless careful examination is made. Being interested in psychology, I found these nuances interesting. Even so, I initially didn’t find the characters likable. The grandmother, for instance, is very self-centered. When she mentions that there’s a murderer running loose in the family’s designated vacation area, she doesn’t do so out of concern. Rather, she just wants to go somewhere else and is “seizing at every chance to change [her son’s] mind.” When her family begins getting killed, she never begs for their lives, but is preoccupied with pleading for her own, telling the Misfit that he “ought not to shoot a lady” (348).

While the family is together in the beginning, we can see the grandmother trying to persuade her son to go to Tennessee rather than Florida, “You ought to take them somewhere else for a change so they would see different parts of the world and be broad. They never have been to east Tennessee.” (page 443). These attempts failed, and although this mention may seem very insignificant, a later one can almost be considered the cause of this families demise. While the family is continuing their trip to Florida, the grandmother can be seen telling her grandchildren a story about an old plantation she visited in what she believed, at the time, was Georgia. The children and the grandmother convinced Bailey to visit the plantation, so they end up going down a dirt road to get to it. It’s not until they’re halfway down the road when the grandmother realizes that the plantation was not in Georgia, but instead is in Tennessee. “The grandmother decided that she would not mention that the house was in Tennessee.” (page 450). Though this may be seen as nothing, it can also be seen as extreme foreshadowing due to the wreck that happened when the grandmother realized she had been wrong about the

Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man Is Hard To Find” begins with a Southern Family as they embark on what seems to be simple a trip from Georgia to Florida. During the trip, the family encounters Red Sammy Butts, the owner of The Tower restaurant. Red Sammy tells a story of two men who came into the store and he let them “charge the gas they bought” (O’Connor, 1344). After Red Sammy questioned his own decision to do this, the grandmother, who accompanied the family on the trip, proclaimed that he did it “Because you are a good man!” (O’Connor, 1344). This is the first time, of many, that the word ‘good’ is alluded to in the short story. This single word (good) in the quote from the grandmother not only foreshadows, but also provides the structure for the rest of the story ahead.

One of the most memorable lines from “A Good Man Is Hard To Find” comes from the Misfit when he says, “She would have been a good woman if it had been someone there to shoot her for every minute of her life (O’Connor 309).” Flannery O’Connor’s depiction of Christian faith can be seen in almost all of her works. Inevitably, the plots in all of O’Connor’s stories end with a shocking conclusion, and this leaves the reader with freedom to interpret the central idea. From the endless list of themes that O’Connor embeds into her stories, “A Good Man Is Hard To Find” is largely influenced by divine grace, hypocrisy, bitter reality, and white supremacy.

1. In O’Connor’s “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” the Christ-haunted south is a predominant theme. The meaning of Christ-haunted is that many folks are intrigued by Jesus but don’t want to be integrated by him, they are fascinated by spiritual things and people but don’t want to be one of those people. To many people Jesus is just an object of fascination.

Another short story of O’Conner that proves my thesis is called “A good man is Hard to find”, its a story with different concept but yet seems to have the same theme. O’Conner is shown to use religion yet again to have readers determine characters personalities. The story begins with a family taking a trip to Florida which their grandmother does not approve. She been reading about the criminal being on that way. She mentions how there is a dangerous criminal named The Misfit on the loose who is headed the same way. No one takes her seriously and they make their way to Florida. The grandmother tells stories on the way and makes a stop at the restaurant to eat. She talks about Misfit and how hard it can be to trust and find good people in the

Fear of the Unknown “To fear death, gentlemen, is no other than to think oneself wise when one is not, to think one knows what one does not know. No one knows whether death may not be the greatest of all blessings for a man, yet men fear it as if they knew that it is the greatest of evils” (Socrates). The works “A Good Man is Hard to Find” by Flannery O’Conner and “Guest of the Nation” by Frank O’Conner address the issue of death. Both stories suggest that death is something that we cannot avoid, but in the world we live in death doesn’t always happen in the middle of the night of natural causes. The world is a cruel place and the death of so many people happen by the bullet of a gun.

Many people have a different definition of a “good” man. Flannery O’ Connor short-story “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” gives readers a brief view on the subject. In the story the foundation for what makes a good man seems to only come from the grandmother. However when she is faces with a disadvantage by Misfit, he puts a twist on her views, and shatters that foundation. “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” is neither a happy nor sad story, both characters have many flaws and seem undeserving, but through an unexpected encounter they both found grace and redemption.

In the short story “A Good Man is Hard to Find” the author, Flannery O’Connor communicates literary symbols and prominence of Southern culture. Within the story, there are subtle yet important details that make the entirety of the piece as iconic as it is. The reoccurring theme of being a lady and moral codes both are important to the overall concept of the story.

During the trip the grandmother talked endlessly about things like interesting details of the scenery and warns Bailey about his highway safety . Nobody paid her attention. She always compared how different life is now and she was a con artist. She made things sound appealing to everyone except Bailey. On the way to Florida, she convinced her grandchildren to beg their father to visit a old house she said she remembered seeing when they stopped at the restaurant . While driving down the dirt road she believed it was on, the cat scared Bailey and they wrecked the car. Soon a hearse-like vehicle approached and it so happened to be the Misfit. He slowly kills each of them off as sacrifices and says ‘the grandmother had the potential to be a good woman, if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life.” In the short story, there are many different topics that can be discussed/analyzed. Religion is a huge part. John Wesley is the name of

Fagan Blake Fagan Hensley English 11 / Fifth Period 08 January 2018 Part 1 : Plot Summary “A Good Man Is Hard To Find” is an interesting short story essentially about a family going on a vacation and encountering a notorious criminal, along with the lack of trust in the world they lived in. It all starts off in Georgia. The family is planning a vacation to travel to Florida but the grandmother insists that East Tennessee would be more beneficial due to the fact that the children had been to Florida before.