Symbolism In A Good Man Is Hard To Find

In the short story "A Good Man is Hard to Find", Flannery O'Connor uses symbolism to display various hidden meanings throughout the story. One common theme portrayed by the symbols in the story is the families impending death. Some examples regarding their impending death are the Misfits car, the forest, the sky, the grandmothers hat, and prayer. The use of symbolism throughout the story allows for readers to get a feel for what may occur. As evidenced in this short story, O'Connor uses several circumstances and objects that hint at what was going to happen next.

While ambiguity in literary works may cause vagueness and sometimes confusion, it opens up the story to different interpretations. Ambiguity can be a powerful literary tool when the author uses it intentionally, giving the liberty to the readers to interpret the story for him or herself based on their own psychology and imagination. This motivates the reader to be actively involved with the storyline. In A Good Man Is Hard to Find by Flannery O’Connor, ambiguity of motivation is portrayed by O’Connor herself and the characters within the story, creating an interactive piece of literary work.

Flannery O’Connor has long been criticized for her blatant incorporation of religious symbols into sinister, dark stories. In the short story “A Good Man Is Hard To Find,” the dark and apathetic Misfit is said to portray, in an allegorical sense, a Christ-like figure. However, through the interpretation of the inversions of divine characteristics, his repulsion of Christ’s very existence, and the denial of any powers beyond the observable realm, we find that the Misfit is actually representative of the Anti-Christ.

Flannery O’Connor was known for her strong religious background, Catholicism, and used her faith as the underlying message in her works. In the story, “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” there are a couple of things that can be traced directly to Christianity. The little boy, John Wesley, symbolizes the religious denomination of Methodism. John Wesley, along with his brother Charles Wesley, founded the

in "A Good Man Is Hard to Find" Flannery O' Connor uses symbolism to give more meaning to her short story. O'Connor writes a story of a Grandmother versus a Misfit, or good versus evil. This short story is about a family going to Florida, who takes a turn down a dirt road, which only causes them to get in an accident, and be found by the Misfit. This encounter prevented them from ever arriving Florida, because the Misfit ends their lives. Using symbolism, O'Connor creates a story with much meaning to the Grandmother, nature, sky, woods, their surroundings, roads, and cars to portray the constant battle between good and evil.

One way Flannery O’Connor uses biblical references in her short story “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” is by characterizing The Misfit to seem like a couple of different major

“She would have been a good woman if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life”(O’Connor 11). In A Good Man Is Hard To Find, the grandma was at gunpoint, about to get shot by the Misfit, but she forgives him for all of the bad things he has done. This means that she could have been a good person if there was someone there to shoot her every second of her life because it was when she was about to be shot that she became a good person. In general throughout many of O'Connor's works, including A Good Man is Hard to Find, Revelation and A Late Encounter With the Enemy she uses the theme of darkness to show how people react and who people are when in great conflict, just like in the example above. Throughout O'Connor's stories, she uses the theme of darkness to show how people really are in times of greatest conflict.

Exploring the idea that all men are born sinners, O’Connor demonstrates immoral indulgences entertained by various characters. Readers are introduced to grandmother, an elderly woman whose consistent unscrupulous behavior exhibits her inner motives. Grandmother uses subtle, indirect confrontation to get her way until she is faced with The Misfit, a runaway criminal who believes that crime is a justifiable. In “A Good Man Is Hard To Find,” Flannery O’Connor uses characterization to display a loss of morals, imagery to portray evil in society, and symbolism to emphasize the struggle of obtaining grace to prove how life is nihilistic without religion.

The grandmother has a strong faith in God and it affects every aspect of her life. The misfit doesn’t believe in Jesus and that he threw everything off balance when he claimed to raise the dead. He doesn’t believe that Jesus was real because he says that he wasn’t there to see Jesus raise the dead, so because of this he has no faith. This totally contradicts the grandmother’s beliefs. Even though grandmother knows the

Theme is the big idea of the story, and the theme of “A Good Man is Hard to Find” revolves around Jesus. Religion is the ultimate deciding factor of life and death in the end. To save her life, the grandmother brings up Jesus to the Misfit and during the confrontation the reader realizes that Misfit has thought more about Jesus than the grandmother. The grandmother states that Jesus did raise the dead; however, she later agrees with Misfit that Jesus, in fact, didn’t raise the dead. The misfit says that he wasn’t there so he doesn’t know what to believe and he shoots the grandmother three times in the chest. Misfit believes there is no pleasure in life due to his reaction to the biblical allusion. The Misfit’s distant relationship with Jesus helps him believe that their is no point to life, and no real right or wrong.

Flannery O’Connor like to add a touch of spirituality to her stories, with “A good man is hard to find” it seem as though she is using the Christ to paint the picture of the story to teach a moral lesson. The article expresses the grandmother as manipulative and moralistic and in many way she was especially when she did things such as bribing her granddaughter, inciting the children to disrespect their father, not telling the truth about the old house with the secret panel, When the misfit stated Christ didn’t raise the dead and in a effort to ingratiate herself with the agnostic the misfit said “maybe he didn’t raise the dead” her own moral compass seems conflicted. While the Misfit seems as if he lost all sense of his motility and now feel that because of all the things he when through in his life he is morally obligated to commit these heinous crimes. As these two characters have this conversation it seems as if the misfit is realizing that his moral structure is a result of the choices he made or other made that guided him to that

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

Besides being a Catholic in a Christian society, and having to deal with people not taking religion seriously, she was also suffering from a disease called lupus. She was diagnosed in 1950 and passed away in 1967. Her father lost his life due to the same disease as well, so one could say she may have even had spite with God. The attitude of the author is reflected in the personality of the misfit. He talks about how he’s unsure if Jesus raised anyone from the dead. The Misfit then goes on to say that he was sure Jesus never made mistakes, but he was unsure what he did wrong. He claims that he has served in the army, been a gospel singer, and that he was even married. He then says “I was never a bad boy that I could remember…” (‘o Connor 354), It’s almost like she’s questioning her own faith through The Misfit’s character. Her father died when she was just a teenager, which could have confused her. Also the Misfit is unsure of what he did wrong; this

An intricately written short story titled “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” explores the perspectives of various kinds of people because its author, Flannery O’Connor, believes that it is better to comprehend a story when it is experienced. Looking through the eyes of the characters is an effective way to know how they understand certain things. The settings, motif and characters of the story were the literary devices that helped to represent the theme of good versus evil.

A manipulator is someone that “control[s] or play[s] upon by artful, unfair, or insidious means especially to one’s own advantage (“Manipulate,”def. 2.b). This word is used to describe the grandmother in the short story. An individual can see just how manipulative the grandmother is in the opening of the story. She was determined to change her son, Bailey’s, mind about their trip to Florida because she wanted to go to East Tennessee. In this story, a person can see the many ways the grandmother manipulates people through the story like her grandchildren, Bailey, Red Sam, and the Misfit. She manipulates anyone to simply get what she wants. Lying is a false statement made by an individual. A person can see how these lies play a major effect in the story. How in today’s world lying is the normal thing to do? Lying and manipulation are the key elements that are demonstrated by different characters throughout “A Good Man is Hard to Find.”