In Flannery O 'Connor's A Good Man Is Hard To Find'

In" A Good Man is Hard to Find" there are a variety of themes. The themes in this short story are: the grace of the grandmother and The Misfit, the vague definition of a “good man”, and the class of the grandmother. All of these themes are apparent to any reader, but it does not quite seem to match O’Connor’s depth style way of writing. The two characters, the Grandmother and the Misfit change from beginning to end. Even though they are both different as night and day, they both have principles and stand by their principles no matter what the circumstance.

In the short story A Good Man Is Hard to Find, written by Flannery O’Connor, the theme that the definition of a ‘good man’ is mysterious and flawed is apparent. The reader must realize that it is difficult to universalize the definition of a good man because every person goes through different experiences. Thus, these experiences affect his or her viewpoint and in turn flaw ones view on a good man. O’Connor conveys this theme through her excellent use of diction, imagery, foreshadowing, and symbolism as well as through a creative use of repetition and an omniscient point of view.

This article from the SCC database explains that O’Connor sought to present a message of God’s grace and presence in everyday life. It then provides a basic summary of “A Good Man is Hard to Find”. The article continues, going into an in-depth characterization of the grandmother and how she ultimately dies having transcended into grace. The article’s author and editor, Kathleen Wilson, is a professor of history and cultural studies at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. She was educated at Yale University and has been awarded fellowships from a number of foundations. Even though the article was published in 1997, it still holds up, as it is analyzing a story that has already been written and will not change. There is no evidence of bias, as it is a simple analysis and summary. This source came from Short Stories for Students, which was published by Gale Publishing. Gale Publishing is reliable and unbiased, as they are an educational publishing company that has been publishing works since 1954. There are a few cited sources for this secondary source, one of which is biased. The biased source is a New York Times Book Review, which is biased in favor of the story, “A Good Man is Hard to Find”. This source will be useful in describing the grandmother’s character and analyzing her connection to spirituality in the first body paragraph. It also helps to connect

In today’s society, several individuals have come across a point where they were on the verge of the death. Murder is constantly being thrown across headlines, news reports, and social media throughout America. It has become a disastrous factor throughout many individual’ lives. Viewing families suffer from their lost loved ones, as well as the murder of innocent lives have been tremendously relevant in today’s society. What many individuals fail to understand, is what actually happens during their last seconds on earth. Throughout the short story, “A Good Man Is Hard To Find,” O’Connor uses a Grandmother to convey to the readers the actually value of goodness an individual tends to gain when confronted with death. Just as revealed in the short story, violence frequently triggers an individual’s actions when presented with death. In “A Good Man Is Hard To Find,” Flannery O’Connor uses theme, conflict, and religion in order to portray the false acts of goodness projected by the grandmother.

     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

“A Good Man is hard to find,” a short story written by Flannery O’ Connor, is one of the most interesting stories I’ve ever come across to in my life. Born as an only child into a Catholic family, O’ Conner is one of the most “greatest fiction writers and one of the strongest apologists for Roman Catholicism in the twentieth century (New Georgia Encyclopedia).” She was a very strong believer in her faith and she used her stories as a tool to send the reader a message that were most likely ignored and almost never uttered out loud. The story revolves around a grandmother who believes to be high and mighty around others. This results in her downfall later on.

O’Connor first expresses her views in her short story, “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” by using the literary element of point of view. Point of view is an important literary element in O’Connor’s short story, because it expresses her views on the grandmother and her “role as grace-bringer” (Bethea 2006). Point of view is expressed in her story by the main character the grandmother, a woman who lives with her son and tries to convince her family to go to Tennessee to avoid the Misfit. Point of view is especially important in this story because it lets the reader know what the grandmother is thinking and her actions that involve the main conflict of the short story. For instance, in “A Good Man Is Hard to Find”, the

Also, the grandmother seems to care less about poverty and the sufferings of lower class people. For example, when the old women spots a poor Negro child in the street naked without any pants, she says, "Wouldn't that make a picture now?” (A Good Man…). The author connects the grandmother to the real world where a lot of people pay more attention to their outward appearance to impress others than to beautify their inner self first. Also, the family in the story has a car in an era where having a car was perceived as a higher class possession. Although the grandmother shows a prejudice behavior towards the little Negro child with her comments, O’Connor mean to emphasize the class difference that exists in the American society and the negligence and the lack of assistance from higher class to less fortunate class.

Brutality, humor, religion, and violence are a few themes portrayed throughout many of Flannery O’Connor’s short stories. In many of her short stories, O’Connor exposes the dark side of human nature and implements violent and brutal elements in order to emphasize her religious viewpoints. In the short stores “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” and “Revelation”, O’Connor explicitly depicts this violence to highlight the presence and action of holy grace that is given to a protagonist who exudes hypocritical qualities.

Mary Flannery O’Connor, the writer of many short stories known for their cruel endings and religious themes, wrote “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” in 1955. “Her works combine flat realism with grotesque situations; violence occurs without apparent reason or preparation.” (Roberts 429). “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” is about a southern family’s trip to Florida which takes a dramatic turn. This story was written in O’Connor’s first collection of short stories. “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” is a compelling story of tragedy that utilizes humor and irony to draw the reader’s attention, and two major characters to convey the authors central theme.

In doing so she develops a detached narration in which her characters can only be judged by their actions. Being told in third person “A Good Man is Hard to Find” is not delivered directly by one of the characters involved in the action. The first sentence of the story indicates an objective narrator. For example, “The grandmother didn’t want to go to Florida” (Roberts 575). Although the reader is aware of the Grandmother’s thoughts and no one else’s. Even the names of the characters illustrate the story’s point of view; Bailey’s wife, the Grandmother’s daughter-in-law, is referred to generically as “the children’s mother.” This reveals that the Grandmother thinks of her only in terms of being her son’s wife and her grandchildren’s mother disregarding her as an individual (Bouchard). O’Connor is attentive, however, not to enter completely into the Grandmother’s thoughts and feelings, he keeps an “authorial distance” in an effort to establish a specific point of view for her literary work (Bouchard). O’Connor is often praised for being “detached” in her narration, allowing readers to come to their own conclusions about the characters. The idea of detachment is seen through her decision to never give the Grandmother an actual name during the story (Bouchard). This method keeps the reader from identifying too closely with the Grandmother, or recognizing her as an individual. As a result, she is just a typical antebellum elderly woman. This device allows O’Connor to present characters who must be judged by their actions, rather than on insignificant criteria in the story. O’Connor’s strategic use of the fictional element of Point of view phenomenally creates a connection to her overall theme of Identity in her short story “A Good Man is Hard to

In the short story, “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” a family comprising of a grandmother, a father, three children, and a wife is headed on vacation has the misfortune of meeting a murderous band of serial killers. The Misfit and his band of serial killers are recently escapees of a federal prison. In the following paragraphs this paper looks into the issues of, what one would do in a situation such as that and the background of the the family and murderers as well.

Looking at “A Good Man is Hard to Find”, the reader is introduced to a family very early on in the story. With a particular character standing out, the grandmother. Her

A literal interpretation of the grandmother portrays an elderly southern woman attempting to maintain the proper and genteel values of the South. The grandmother places great importance on her appearance and the opinions of others. This importance is revealed at the beginning of their journey when the story compares the grandmother, a reflection of the past, to the daughter-in-law, a reflection of the present:

In Flannery O'Connor's A Good Man is Hard To Find, one is struck by the unexpected violence at the end of the story. However, if you re-read the story a second time, you will see definite signs that foreshadow the grotesque ending. The story begins with the typical nuclear family being challenged by the grandmother who doesn't want to take the vacation to Florida. She has read about a crazed killer by the name of the Misfit who is on the run heading for Florida. Unfortunately, she is ignored by every member of the family except for the little girl, June Star, who can read the grandmother like an open book. The fact that she admonishes Bailey, her son, of this Misfit