Flannery O’Conner’s A Good Man Is Hard to Find: Selfishness That Doomed Them All

In literature, there is always the protagonist. The protagonist is the character from whose perspective the whole story is told. And in many cases protagonists are a part of a psychological thriller, which is a literary work that emphasizes the unstable psychological states of its character(s). As the story and the conflicts progress, the protagonist usually undergoes a character arc, in which he or she witnesses significant changes in his or her personality.

As they continue down and endless road the cat springs free from the hiding place in which the grandmother placed it, which causes Bailey to loose control and wreck. While sitting on the side of the road a car with 3 men pulled over one the grandmother stupidly introduces him to everyone as The Misfit. One by one each person is taken to the woods and shot while the grandmother tries to spare her life with The Misfit. Suddenly with the threat of death near her door she suddenly tries to be something she is not. She sympathizes with him and tries to relate to him. All of this comes to no avail if anything it antagonizes him which throws a switch in his mind and he reacts the only way he knows how, by shooting her in the chest and putting his problem to an end.

The characters selfish ways can be noted from the beginning and the end of the story. In the beginning, it is noted how selfish the grandmother is because she does not want to

Our Life is a matter of choices. Live well and have faith and it will never go wrong. Our lives can be full of crazy ups and downs that shape our views on how life should be lived. With a similar ideology, author Flannery O’Connor’s depicts her own life struggles using different aspects and details throughout her novels and short stories. O’Connor lived by the basis that life must go on no matter the hardships. In her novels she represented various characters who made wrong choices and due to those choices suffered extreme negative consequences. Despite her struggles, O’Connor made the choice to continue on in her life yet many of her novels contradicted that same idea by having characters in her novels and short stories suffer consequences for making the wrong choices. Because the

From the time they all got in the car to the time they got out, all the grandmother did was talk. She was trying to talk her way to Tennessee and she talked her way into them detouring to go see some house that the grandmother

In the beginning, the grandmother is reading the newspaper where she then learns about the Misfit who escaped prison. The grandmother says, “I wouldn’t take my children in any direction with a criminal like that aloose in it. I couldn’t answer to my conscious if it did” (O’Connor 485). This quote foreshadows as the accident happened with her guidance on the road it is what led them to steer off the main road. They were on and into the arms of who they call the Misfit and his

I feel that the Grandmother in the story 'A Good Man is Hard to Find' suffers from psychological conditions. She does not care at all about anyone but herself. I feel that she may even be narcissistic. It is ironic because she would be expected to look out for her family. The Cambridge Dictionary defines narcissism as 'too much interest in and admiration for your own physical appearance and/or your own abilities' It is ironic because she would be expected to look out for her family, however in reality she only really looks out for herself. She shows how self centered she really is many times throughout the story. She displays a complete lack of regard for what anyone else

Now we take a look at the ending. The family had an accident on a back road, flipping their car. This occurred all because of grandmother. She told Bailey that the old plantation was along this way, and that the mansion had a secret panel in it. The kids went nuts to see this passage, and Bailey, the father, gave in and took them down this road to see it. The cat got uncomfortable from the whole situation and

The family is made up of the Grandmother and her son Bailey, and his children John Wesley, June Star and the baby, and there is also the mother of his children. O 'Connor uses clues in devious ways, that doesn 't ruin the readers thoughts. She uses foreshadowing FOUR major times throughout the story: the grandmas clothes, her words, the death of her family and the conversation with the misfit. The grandma, who is the protagonist in this short story tries to persuade her son and his wife to vacation somewhere other than Florida because an escaped convict is headed to the same place they are. "Here this fellow that calls himself The Misfit is aloose from the Federal Pen and headed toward Florida and you read here what it says he did to these people. Just you read it. I wouldn 't take my children in any direction with a criminal like that aloose in it. I couldn 't answer to my conscience if I did."

Bailey and his family are all selfish, “each member of Bailey’s family is driven by selfishness.” Bailey will not change where they go, with all the reason’s the grandmother gave to not go to Florida, Bailey still had the family go to Florida. Both of the children are selfish and disrespectful. They scream to get what they want, they wanted to go to the house to find the hidden treasure. So, when their dad said no they screamed and hollered until their father finally agreed.The children and grandmother “manipulated [Bailey] … to take a detour he doesn’t want to take” because they wanted to selfishly find the hidden treasure. The only person in the family that does not show selfishness is the mother; she sits quietly in the front seat and does not say anything. It may be said “Bailey’s family dies in part because they’ve gone in search of a house filled with hidden ‘family silver’… that has never been

"The representation of the grotesque is a characteristic of much 20th century writing" (Holman 61). Almost all of O 'Connor 's short stories usually end in horrendous, freak fatalities or, at the very least, a character 's emotional devastation. People have categorized O 'Connor 's work as "Southern Gothic" (Walters 30). In Many of her short stories, A Good Man Is Hard To Find for example, Flannery O 'Connor creates grotesque characters to illustrate the evil in people.

Flannery O’Conner’s short story, “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” illustrates a family vacation rapidly gone bad when the family encounters a vicious end by an escaped criminal known as “The Misfit”. The story includes a family of five; a husband, wife and three kids, and the Grandmother. The family has planned to take a trip to Florida, but the Grandmother argues that East Tennessee would be better as a recent criminal escaped from Florida, but no other family member views it as a big deal. Much like the title exemplifies, the men in this short story are very irritable, sexist and even worse, killers. While the story conveys that a good man is truly hard to find, O’Conner displays “The Misfit” to be a catastrophic character. The main idea of the story quickly becomes about redemption as the Grandmother tries to introduce faith and religion to “The Misfit” in order from him to turn his life around. But while the Grandmother is fighting this battle, the redemption story naturally brings light to the story’s treatment of women. The female characters within this story obey a male-controlled view of how women should live their life and what actions they should perform. At the conclusion of the story, the story advises that all women must be redeemed, and the only way to do so is with the help from a “good man.”

The irony of the story is that it is under the directions of the Grandmother that leads the family into a run in with The Misfit, which is what she told her son she would never do. Throughout the trip we are given examples of the racism that was present during this period. The Grandmother makes multiple racist innuendos such as her observation of the “cute little pickaninny,” and her statement that “little niggers in the country don’t have things like we do” (O’Conner 2). During the ride, The Grandmother convinces Bailey to take a detour down an old, dirt road which supposedly leads to an old southern plantation home she once visited. The road leads them deep into the woods where an accident is caused by The Grandmothers cat, which leaves the car upturned and the family stranded. It is then the family encounters The Misfit, whom discovers them stranded as he was passing by. He approaches the family with two young men and shortly after The Grandmother lets out a scream as she realizes him. During their encounter, the readers are given a small glimpse into the deranged mind of The Misfit. It is apparent that he has an upturned moral compass. He gains pleasure from committing crimes and the meanness that goes along with it. During his conversation with the Grandmother, he slowly has his men take members of the family out

A Critical Character Analysis of Flannery O 'Connor 's “Good Country People”, “A Good Man is Hard to find”, "Everything That Rises Must Converge".

In order to know who the protagonist of a story is, it is essential to know what a protagonist is. According to Literary Devices, “A protagonist is the central character or leading figure in poetry, narrative, novel, or any other story”. This means that the protagonist is the main character of the story. The story revolves around this character and the conflict affects them. A protagonist is usually an honorable and sincere person who looks out for others. For a character to be the protagonist, the audience must be able to relate to that character. They also have to have a flaw that the audience can personally connect to.