In the Flannery O'Connor story “A Good Man Is Hard to Find,” the author introduces us the grandmother’s characteristics in the beginning. The grandmother thinks she is superior to everyone else because she is a “lady." She judges others and criticized Bailey wife because she believes the mother doesn't take the children somewhere abroad. She is dishonest, dissimulation, and selfish. The Misfit appears at the end of the story. He is showing that he doesn't care about anything or believes in Christ or religious matter. The grandmother tries to influence him that he can be a good person. The grandmother is a contributing factor that tries to show the Misfit that he can be a good man. The grandmother was in fault of being selfish. The moral …show more content…
In this quote, she realizes her attitude was bad when she was with her family, and since they died she realizes she didn’t stand in good faith. The Misfit thinks it meanness to believe in Christ because there was nothing for him. In Flannery O’Connor stories writes about religious matters to her characters. Like the Misfit he lacks believe of religious, but the other hand the grandmother tries to make him believe the sense of it. “Thus, Miss O'Connor's fiction is primarily concerned with man's life-and-death spiritual struggle” (Dowell 236). The Misfit tells his story why he became a killer to the grandmother. He struggled with his life where the point he just became a criminal. When he killed the grandmother he had self-insures. He felt sorry for the grandmother that she ended up that way at the end. “Because he cannot believe, the Misfit commits himself to evil” (236). She doesn’t believe that he can be an evil person because everyone is missing something. She talks to them until he understood what she is getting at. She tells him he is like one her children: “What does in fact happen in this part of the story is quite straightforward: the Grandmother, having exhausted all other appeals to the Misfit, resorts to her only remaining (though certainly imperfect) weapon: motherhood. Declaring to the Misfit that he is one of her babies, she sets out to conquer him. Perhaps she hopes that this ultimate flattery will melt his heart, and he will collapse in her comforting
The leading lady in “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” is the bossy grandmother of a traditional, southern family. It is the grandmother’s “final encounter with the Misfit that changes her relations to the world” (Link, "Means, Meaning, and Mediated Space in ‘A Good Man Is Hard to Find’"). Before her unexpected meeting with the Misfit, the grandmother feels above everyone else. She feels like she can talk
The confrontation between the grandmother and The Misfit in “A Good Man is Hard to Find” revolves around Jesus. The grandmother brings up praying to Jesus in hope that she can induce The Misfit to spare her life by appealing to his religious sense. It turns out, however, that The Misfit has probably thought about Jesus more seriously than she has. The Misfit’s doubt in Jesus leads him to think that there is no real right or wrong, and no ultimate point to life.
The grandmother also secretly brought the family cat, “She had her big black valise and underneath it she was hiding a basket with Pitty Sing, the cat, in it” (O’ Connor 1106), even though “Her son, Bailey, didn’t like to arrive at a motel with a cat” (O’ Connor 1107). When The Misfit arrives, “The grandmother had the peculiar feeling that the bespectacled man was someone she knew” (O’ Connor 1112), but when she later realizes who the man is, she claims, “‘I recognized you at once!’” (O’ Connor 1113). She tells The Misfit, “‘we turned over twice!’” (O’ Connor 1112), even though they both knew that it was only once. Lastly, the grandmother lies again to herself and to The Misfit when she says, “‘you shouldn’t call yourself The Misfit because I know you’re a good man at heart’” (O’ Connor 1113). The only reason she says this is in an attempt to save her life.
In “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” the Grandmother is the protagonist. She is the focus of the narrative and the character whose reactions we encounter the most. More importantly, the third person narrative focuses strongly on the grandmother’s point of view, which establishes her in the reader’s mind much more than any other character. Nevertheless, the grandmother views herself as a rather dignified and traditional woman who appears to judge everyone, but manages to constantly overlook her own flaws. This appears various times such as when she conveys her ideas about the upcoming vacation and June Star states “She has to go everywhere we go” (O’Connor 567), in which merely displays the Grandmother as unwanted by the family. This can be compared to that of the Misfit in the story who also appears to be unwanted by his family. Despite this, the Grandmother continuously positions herself in the family’s everyday activities while imposing her judgment every chance she gets. Moreover, she is censorious of her son and daughter in law for not allowing their children to “see different parts of the world and be broad” (O’Connor 567). She is also critical of her grandchildren for not being like children “In my time” (O’Connor 569) who “were more respectful” (O’Connor 569). By doing this, O’Connor presents a strong characterization of the woman and her virtually unbreakable mindset. However, this story reflects on how through any conflict you can find the good in others, but sometimes it is too late for them to realize their own mistakes. Eventually, the Grandmother confronts evil in the form of The Misfit and seems to show a completely different side of
In the short story, 'A Good Man is Hard to Find', the main character is the grandmother. Flannery O'Connor, the author, lets the reader find out who the grandmother is by her conversations and reactions to the other characters in the story. The grandmother is the most important character in the story because she has a main role in the stories principal action. This little old lady is the protagonist in this piece. We learn more about her from her direct conversation with the son, Bailey, her grandchildren, June Star and John Wesley, and the Misfit killer. Through these conversations, we know that she is a lady raised from a traditional background. In the story, her attitude changes
As Bandy mentions, the grandmother and the misfit are often intertwined in many critics’ reviews of A Good Man is Hard to Find (1). One of the most obvious ironies they share is that you perceive one as being the opposite of the other for the wrong reasons. With the grandmother, as stated before, one may assume her to be a good person, while she is in fact the opposite. While the Misfit would most likely be associated as a murderer and a horrible monster, he in fact is a decent human being. Wynne emphasizes the humor in the grandmother’s attempt to save herself by calling the Misfit one of her children (1). As if she is good and therefore he, being of the same good blood, must also be good. In these aspects I completely agree with these writer’s interpretations of the grandmother and the
The grandmother feels that God provides the answer to any underlying problems, and the Misfit knows and feels that all of the horrible things he has done are truly not considered morally wrong from his perspective. Towards the end, when the grandmother experienced an epiphany before the Misfit shot her in the chest she stated, “Why you’re one of my babies. You’re one of my own children” (11). This made the grandmother realize that she was expressing the true Christian belief that we are all seen as equal in the eyes of God, no matter how murderous someone may be. O’Connor’s use of spiritual insight stripped away the grandmothers self-centeredness, and helped her discover the ability to see others with compassion and understanding. Nonetheless, within “A Good Man is Hard to Find” O’Connor provides great amount of spiritual insight in her short stories mainly as a way to connect her characters with God and to make them recognize the true meaning of individual equality.
With the shock of coming face-to-face with death, she starts to let go of her power-hungry and deceptive behavior and decides to act out of love and humility. Her head has become clear, and more than ever she becomes aware of the situation. All her shallow and hypocritical thoughts seemed to have dissipated, and she sees the Misfit as a child of God just. The grandma notices a voice crack in the Misfit’s voice and thought he was about to cry; she murmurs, “Why you're one of my babies. You're one of my own children” (O’Connor 458-459)! The grandmother calls the Misfit one of her kids despite the crimes he has already committed; God’s spirit may have entered the grandmother and is attempting to offer redemption to the Misfit since she has now accepted it. The still figure of the grandmother is described as “her legs crossed under her like a child’s and her face smiling up at the cloudless sky” (459). God has given the grandma salvation now, and her spirit has a journey to heaven via the cloudless sky. O’Connor shows the protagonist to be hypocritical, but the protagonist found salvation and appeared happy after accepting God and feeling love towards the Misfit; the Misfit appeared to reject God when he shot the grandmother in the chest after she was trying to lend him a hand. The grandmother was able to find salvation through the violence the Misfit brought.
The “Misfit’s” response to the Grandmother’s act of unexpected and profound compassion conveys O’Connor’s confidence in the belief that God’s grace and the power of faith are not only strong and omnipresent, but also adversative to a dependence on human reason alone. Even though the “Misfit” consistently rejects the “Chrustian” faith, based almost solely on a lack of factual evidence, he seems to desperately want to believe and enjoy an acceptance of the omnipotence and omnipresence of God’s grace and love. He understands that faith is a choice; he simply chooses to live by himself instead, standing by his own sense of independence and autonomy and saying that he’s “doing all right by [himself]”. As the “Misfit” is continually pressed by the Grandmother to pray, he is pushed farther into this rejection of faith, even seemingly connecting the Grandmother to a literal representation of Jesus as she experiences her spiritual transformation right before her death.
In Flannery O’Connor’s short story, “A Good Man is Hard to Find” the grandmother and the Misfit become the main focus even though the other characters are involved in the story. Throughout the entire story, The Misfit is portrayed as the symbol of evil because he was in jail; he escaped from jail, and he committed murders. The grandmother believes to be greater than the people that she are around because of the “good” that she portrays. The conventional meaning of good, or possessing or displaying moral virtue, is not the particular good that the grandmother is trying to portray throughout the story. The grandmother believes that good
A good man really is hard to find. But what is the real definition of a real man? Maybe it is not just the prince charming you see in fairy tales or the perfect guy walking down Sixth Ave. that you pass by everyday to work. Maybe a good guy is simply someone that is good what they do. In this case the relationship between the grandmother and the misfit is just that. The only thing is if the reader sees it as clearly as the author would like them too or simply as she does.
The Misfit is struggling with his faith in God. While he believes in the existence of a God, he does not believe in an active God. His faith struggles are likely because of the injustice he has experienced as a result of his wrongful conviction of murdering his father. He explains his doubts about Jesus’ resurrection from the dead with the grandmother: “‘I wasn 't there so I can 't say
“A Good Man is Hard to Find” tells a twisted story of a typical family going about a road trip embedded with ethical pit stops along the way. The story revolves around a cynical grandmother and how her unconventional attitude and habits set the stage for an interesting turn of events. Through manipulative antics, a prejudice character and an ironic story line, author Flannery O’Conner creates a captivating tale that shines a lights on readers’ own moral codes. The author does this by making an example of a woman completely unaware of her own immoral acts.
Flannery O’Connor also begins her story “A Good Man is Hard to Find” with the introduction of Grandma, the main character. The grandmother appears to represent godliness and Christianity. She is said in the story to have “lacked comprehension, but… had a good heart”.
Religion is a crucial point of the story. Coming to the end of the story, The Misfit and the grandmother are alone together talking. The Misfit's responses to the grandmother's prayers advice reveal that these two individuals are on two very different levels with concern to religion. The Misfit has a much deeper understanding of religion and his belief system than does the grandmother. As the two continue in conversion, the Misfit asks the grandmother if it seems right that Jesus was