Summary Of A Good Man Is Hard To Find By Flannery OConnor

Two more pertinent points are made by the author, in regards to the grandmother, follow in quick succession; both allude to further yet-to-be seen gloom within the story. O’Connor writes of the grandmother “[s]he didn’t intend for the cat to be left alone in the house for three days because he would miss her too much and she was afraid he might brush against one of the gas burners and accidentally asphyxiate himself” (1043) and of the way she is dressed “[i]n case of an accident, anyone seeing her dead on the highway would know at once that she was a lady” (1043). These two observations are innocent enough on the surface but provide true intent on the foreshadowing that O’Connor uses throughout the story. It is these two devices, irony and foreshadowing, that I feel are prominent and important aspects of the story and are evidenced in my quest to decipher this story.

Another virtue the grandmother lacks is courage. Courage is “The state or quality of mind or spirit that enables one to face danger with self-possession, confidence and resolution” (Courage). When The Misfit arrives, the grandmother is nothing but a coward. She exhibits no self-possession, “Alone with The Misfit, the grandmother found that she had lost her voice” (O’ Connor 1116), displayed here when she can’t even speak. She also has no resolution to the situation but to give The Misfit her money, “‘I’ll give you all the money I’ve got!’” (O’ Connor

The significance about the number of times she was shot is notable to be the second most important symbol in the story. “To insist at this moment of mutual revelation that the Grandmother is transformed into the agent of God’s grace is to do serious violence in the story. It is as tendentious as to decree that the bullets in her chest symbolize the trinity” (Bandy, 151). After the grandmother is shot, the story goes on to describe the Grandmother's face. When one thinks someone of being dead, the picture is a blank face. But in this short story it is quoted: “Hiram and Bobby Lee returned from the woods and stood over the ditch, looking down at the grandmother who half sat and half lay in a puddle of blood with her legs crossed under her like a child's and her face smiling up at the cloudless sky” (O’Connor). The smiles symbolizes the Grandmother's acceptance. “The smile on the face of the grandmother marks a victory over the grotesque in which the sublime is passed through to the reception of grace in a gratuitous act of love” (Raigor, 189). The symbolism with the Grandmother is very important throughout the entire short story, as is her role, and her death.

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 character grandmother in O’Connor’s story has grounds the reality of the events and drives the family into tragedy. She is a central character in O’Connor’s story and is depicted to be a dynamic character stuck in the old ways. Through her actions and the idea of being stuck in the old ways of thinking, she leads her family into tragedy. Being the main character in the story, Grandmother significantly adds to the development of the plot. The author manages to win the attention of the reader from this character owing to the manner in which she shapes the storyline. Grandmother’s reminiscing of the old ways claims a distinctive curiosity from the reader and helps in

     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

O'Connor does the same thing here; the grandmother's first action was to convince her son, Bailey, into going were she wanted to go, a selfish act, not a trait that we see a grandmother having. Also she thought out a plan to get what she wanted by acting as if she cared about her family's safety. "Now looks here, Bailey........ see here, read this...Here this fellow that calls himself the Misfit is aloose from the Federal Pen and headed towards Florida and you read here what is says he did to these people(328)." The grandmother's relationship right away to the reader is one that can not be trusted. Throughout the story you now question the grandmother's intentions, are they honest or selfish.

The story “A Good Man is Hard to Find”, by Flannery O’Connor, is about nuclear family in the 50’s who decided to go to East Tennessee for vacation instead of Florida. The grandmother said that the way Tennessee opposes the Misfit, a criminal who escaped from jail, was one of the main reasons for her choice. On the way, the grandmother suggests going to an old mansion she once visited by deceiving the kids to force Bailey to seek out the place but the grandmother made a mistake with the location. Embarrassed, the grandmother jerks her feet and Pitty Sing, the cat, escapes the basket and surprises Bailey, who wrecks the car. Later, the family meets the Misfit and his partners and the Misfit kills them all after the

“ 'Maybe He didn't raise the dead', the old lady mumbled....” (375) The grandmother's words are a display that her faith was only a facade in an attempt to seem good to everyone else. The grandmother and the Misfit were vastly different characters. The biggest difference between the grandmother and The Misfit was that the grandmother, despite her selfish actions throughout the story, believed herself to be good. The Misfit knew that he wasn’t good. In her last few moments, the grandmother changes one last time, finally putting the well being of someone else before her own. The grandmother reached out to the man that had just murdered her family and tried to comfort him. This act of compassion startled The Misfit and he shot her in the chest, killing the grandmother instantly. “Hiram and Bobby Lee returned from the woods and stood over the ditch, looking down at the/ grandmother who half sat and half lay in a puddle of blood with her legs crossed under her like a child's/ and her face smiling up at the cloudless sky” (385-387). The manner in which the grandmother is positioned in her death is

In the short story, “ A Good Man Is Hard to Find” by Flannery O’Connor, multiple things go disastrously wrong. A family with a self centered grandmother take a road trip to Florida and because of her, the family is all led to their demise. It is a story some would argue to be about a wicked grandmother coming to grace; however, it is the opposite. It is about a granny that has never been concerned for anyone or anything other than herself. There is no act of final grace. The grandmothers talkativeness, narcissism, and stubbornness all contributed to the events that ultimately lead to her families untimely deaths.

One of the most prominent traits the grandmother possesses is that of selfishness. At the story’s opening, O’Connor describes the grandmother as she resists the family vacation to Florida, due to her desire to visit Tennessee and see old friends. Instead of considering what the family and the children

The short story entitled, A Good Man Is Hard To Find, by Flannery O’Connor is not a very difficult story to understand. The short story is about a family who is not like your typical happy-go-lucky family. They do not talk or listen to what each other have to say. The main character, the grandmother, does care for her grandchildren but later on shows that she is all about herself. The characters consist of a young brother named John Wesley, his sister named June Star, their parents, a baby and their grandmother. They decide to set out on a road trip because the grandmother wants to visit people she knows in East Tennessee. While on the road they do encounter different visual aspects of life that make them realize some people are not as fortunate as they are. They make a pit stop at a BBQ place and the grandmother talks with the owner about how times have changed after reading about a prison escape with a known convict named The Misfit. Once back on the road the grandmother begins telling her grandchildren about an old plantation she would visit back when she was younger. This caught the children’s attention and they begged Bailey, the dad, to go to that house. Before they make it things have turned for the worst. Grandmothers cat

If she were the upstanding person she claims to be, then telling a lie would go against her strong conscience. She knows Bailey does not want to take the cat on the trip because she states, “Bailey, didn’t like to arrive at a motel with a cat” (O’Connor 357). O’Connor uses this specific action of the grandmother, the conscious decision to lie and to manipulate, to show she is not the virtuous woman she claims to be.

“A Good Man is Hard to Find” is a horror story written in the 1950’s about a family taking a vacation to Florida from their home town Georgia, but the grandmother wanted to go to east Tennessee. Before leaving, the grandmother was telling her son and the children about the misfit escaping, but they ignored her. As they traveled up the road, the grandmother told stories about old times back in her days while the children read comic books. She woke up from a nap and told the children about a plantation that she once visited and they decided to turn around to go see it. However, they ended up having an accident and just before the accident happened, the grandmother realized that the plantation that she visited was in Tennessee not Georgia. Hoping

The grandmother got her own family in a terrible situation because of one bad memory. She probably did feel really guilty about the situation but what else could she of done? The moral of the story sometimes it takes a tragic thing to happen to find out who someone really is. The family never made it out of the crash