Pride In A Good Man Is Hard To Find

In numerous books, I noticed how it is looked down upon to be a prideful person. This is a lesson that too many people do not seek knowledge of. Those are the few who do not realize the way that you act towards other is only a reflection of yourself. I have seen up close and personal how being a prideful person can seriously hurt your life. In the Popol Vuh I saw them mention pride countless times and one example of that would be from the story of the twins grandparents healing the Lord. “They had desired the death of Seven Macaw, and they were able to do it. For they saw pride as evil and went to do these things according to the word of Heart of Sky.” (p. 88, PopoVuh). What is evil to one could be good to the other, just as what is good

The car “turned over once and landed right-side up” (O’Connor 191). The family suffers from minor injuries after the wreck. The family is not aware that they are being watched at the time of the accident. Out of an approaching car hops three men with guns. The grandmother recognizes one of the men as The Misfit, the escaped convict. Once the grandmother identifies The Misfit he has no choice but to starts killing members of the family. The grandmother ends up being the only family member left to be killed. She tries her hardest to talk The Misfit into not killing her like he did the rest of her family. Stuck in a difficult situation, the grandmother pulls religion into her conversation with the Misfit. She relies on her southern roots to soften the cynical beast in front of her. She rambles on and on telling The Misfit to pray. She tries to gain The Misfit’s trust so she can manipulate him into thinking letting her go is a good idea. He seems to reevaluate his life as he squats in front of her. Moments before her death, the grandmother tells The Misfit that he is “one of my own children” (O’Connor 196). Thinking she has fully gained The Misfit’s trust, the grandmother “reached out and touched him on the shoulder” (O’Connor 196). At this moment, The Misfit shoots her in the chest three times. The idea that The Misfit trusts the grandmother is eliminated and so is the entire

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.

This was a great short story for irony, because the grandmother was correct about most things. The grandmother knew not to go towards Florida because The Misfit was headed that way after escaping from the pen. She was right about dressing like a lady in case of an accident, because indeed there was an accident, but she caused the accident by bringing her cat along without anyone knowing. Then there is speak of a good man, is there any such thing? Red Sammy’s wife wouldn’t even think of him as a good man, if your wife doesn’t believe you are no one really can. The Misfit comes along and talks to the grandmother for a while about good people, while doing so shoots her family then her dead. ‘“She would have been a good woman,” The Misfit said, “if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life”’ (O’Connor 293). This goes with my assumption that the grandmother was just acting like a lady, and The Misfit even saw through her

As the story progresses, the theme changes from being comical to being violent. Also, the reader's perception of the grandmother becomes more intense . As O'Connor said, "[t]here is a change of tension from the first part of the story to the second where the Misfit enters, but this is no lessening of reality" ("On" 176). The presence of the Misfit causes the story to become more of a mystery; therefore, the actions of the grandmother also become a mystery because the reader doesn't know what to expect from her. It is a surprise to the reader to find the grandmother become so sincere. The grandmother tries many traditional methods to keep the Misfit from killing

The grandmother is portrayed as being a selfish self-involved woman who wants her way, a person with little memory, just a basic old woman living with her only son. The Misfit on the other hand is a man who feels he has done no wrong, but has just been in the wrong place at the wrong time, but in the end comes too close to the truth, which scares him.

    “A Good Man Is Hard to Find,” one of O’Connor’s best works, describes a family on a trip to Florida and their encounter with an escaped prisoner, The Misfit. Although “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” is an early work in O’Connor’s career, it contains many of the elements which are used in the majority of her short stories. The grandmother, a selfish and deceitful woman, is a recipient of a moment of grace, despite her many flaws and sins. A moment of grace is a revelation of truth. When the grandmother calls The Misfit her child and reaches out to touch him, the grandmother has a moment of grace that enabled her to see The Misfit as a suffering human being who she is obligated to love. The grandmother realizes that nothing will stop The Misfit from killing her but she reaches out to him despite this. The Misfit rejects her love and kills her anyway. This moment of grace is very important

John C. Maxwell once said “Leaders who fail to prune their pride will meet demise. That's not a guess, it's a guarantee. With pride, it's not a matter of 'if' we will fall, but 'when.' There are no exceptions.” This quote Maxwell says shows how influential pride is and how it can/will lead to someone’s downfall.

Therefore, pride is an unattractive quality to possess because of its ability to cause people to suffer through massive internal conflicts, its possibility of destroying not only one’s self but others around them, and

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.

Pride is often portrayed as negative characteristic that causes people to reach for too much

When one hears the word “pride”, one would rarely imagine a modest person who devotes their time to volunteer work and philanthropy. Typically, one would picture an arrogant politician or a movie star, a person so self-absorbed that they almost entirely ignore the needs of those around them. However, even the humblest acts of virtue can arise from pride as well. The story of Icarus, the boy who became entranced with his own pride and flew too close to the sun, is told time and time again; however, there is another story of pride one hears less often, the person who takes pride in their own humility. Rather than take pride in typical attributes such as wealth, prestige, or even appearance, these people take pride in their modesty and virtue. In this way, pride comes from an unexpected source and is “difficult to avoid since it takes occasion even from good deeds” (Aquinas 7). While the other six deadly sins present both helpful and harmful characteristics of the sin, pride is complex in corrupting even the most well-intentioned actions.

“Pride is the mother of arrogance” (Toba Beta) and knowing this is crucial to life. Most people don’t look at the flip side of pride. Sure, having pride should a good thing, but when people have too much pride problems start arising. People start losing focus of what should matter and only care about their self.

"Pride is concerned about who is right, Humility is concerned about what is right - Ezra Taft Benton"(pg.16). This quote by Ezra Taft Benton means that, negative impact of pride on behavior

Pride comes before a fall; we have to change our character and even when our expectations are not met, the immense fulfillment of our goals and ideas in furthering our agenda has a quality that is above the conflict. When we examine and change our own habitual patterns of