Symbolism In A Good Man Is Hard To Find

"A Good Man is Hard to Find" by Flannery O'Connor is a short story that depicts a family's vacation to Florida that turned into an abysmal tragedy when they met with the Misfit, a convict who escaped from prison. This story is meant to be interpreted as a parable, whereby O'Connor made skilful use of symbolism to bring about messages such as the class-consciousness and the lack of spiritual faith that exist amongst human.

When an author writes a story, he or she will generally use different writing techniques to create the piece. These techniques have the ability to turn a story into something truly unique, as they allow the story to unfold in it’s own way. In the short story “A Good Man is Hard to Find”, author Flannery O’Connor used the techniques of symbolism and foreshadowing throughout the entire piece to create a deeply captivating story, as so many of the details mentioned in the beginning of the story are glimpses of the end.

Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man is Hard to Find” is the story of a family’s vacation tragically ended by The Misfit and his gang. On the way to their vacation spot in Florida, the Grandmother remembers a plantation in Georgia she used to visit when she was a young lady and desperately wants to see it. She tells her son, Bailey, what road it is on and everyone is excited to see it. After a while, the grandmother realizes that she was wrong about where the plantation was and becomes so upset at herself that she knocks things over in the car which causes a car accident. A passing car stops to help the family but the Grandmother realizes that one of the men is a murderer, nicknamed, The Misfit. While one of

The short story “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” by Flannery O’Connor, is bombarded with symbolism. In short stories symbolism is the literary element that helps the reader depict the picture and actions in their own minds. Whether it be from characters’ names or the designs on the characters’ shirts, every detail in this story has a purpose.

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.

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.

In “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” symbolism is used to foreshadow the actions and portray the actual character of The Misfit. Symbolism is using “a person, object, or event that suggests more than its literal meaning” (“Symbolism” 270). O’Connor uses objects that are not menacing in everyday use and describes them in such graphic detail that it intensifies the terror to come in the story (Kahane). After the family had wrecked, a car comes into view, passes by them, comes

“A Good Man is Hard to Find” retells a story of all the evil in this world and how hard it is to find a good person. By creating strong characters and using figurative language and literary techniques, O’Connor leaves the reader

In the story A Good Man is Hard to Find, O’Connor uses her dark theme to foreshadow that the grandma is going to die. The family just got in the car and were driving when the grandmother pointed out that there was the old family graveyard with five or six graves. They passed a large cotton field with five or six graves, fenced in the middle of it, like a small island. “‘Look at the Graveyard!’ the grandmother said pointing it out. ‘That was the old family burying ground that belonged to the plantation’¨ (O’Connor 3). This is foreshadowing that they are going to die. While driving the grandmother points out five or six graves that look new, there are 6 people their family, this is showing that they will all die because there are five or six new graves. This shows that there is a common theme of darkness because this implying something dark will happen. Another example of a dark theme is the family was going on a road trip. Everyone was dressed normally except the grandma who was dressed in really fancy clothes. “In case of an accident, anyone seeing her dead on the highway would know at once that she was a lady”(O’Connor 2). This foreshadowed that the grandma was going to get killed. The grandma cared more about her appearance than dying. This relates to the common theme of darkness because this foreshadows the grandmaś and family's death.

In conclusion, “A Good Man is Hard to Find” by Flannery O’Conner was designed to make the reader think the ending will include the finding of a good man, when

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 plot of “ A Good Man Is Hard To Find” really starts to take action when the family crashes their car and in waiting for help sees a car creeping around the bend, and here O’Connor does a good job setting the tone and image. “The car continued to come on slowly, disappeared around a bend and appeared again, moving even slower, on top of the hill they had gone over. It was a big black battered hearse-like automobile. There were three men in it.” (308) When O’Connor describes the vehicle as black and hearse-like you can tell instantly that the family is in trouble and the Misfit is about to be met. In the eyes of the narrator the family does not know their in trouble until the men exiting the car show they have guns and the grandmother identifies one of the men as the Misfit. Identifying the Misfit may have been the most crucial mistake the grandmother made the whole story, because due to her identifying the man she may have set her family up for death. The grandmother’s son, Bailey, recognizes this and after the Misfit has been recognized and the story says, “ Bailey turned his head sharply and said something to his mother that shocked even the children. The old lady began to

“Writing Short Stories,” an essay summarizing O’Connor’s concepts of the elements of good fiction, was a lecture she gave to a group of creative writing students in 1961. She stated that “In good fiction, certain of the details will tend to accumulate meaning from the action of the story itself, and when this happens they become symbolic in the way they work” ("Writing" 807). The use of symbolism in “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” created a story which seemed to follow a classic model for tragedy. O’Connor explained “I do think, though, that like the Greeks you should know what is going to happen in the story so that any element of suspense in it will be transferred from its surface to the interior” ("Suspense" 802). She created a “cathartic experience” for the purpose of eliciting “a degree of pity and terror” from the audience, “even though its way of being serious is a comic one” ("Suspense" 802).

James E. Faust once said, “In this life, we have to make many choices. Some are very important choices. Some are not. Many of our choices are between good and evil. The choices we make, however, determine to a large extent our happiness or our unhappiness, because we have to live with the consequences of our choices.” In “A Good Man is Hard to Find”, Flannery O’Connor discussed the difference between good and evil within the characters of the short story. The Misfit has his henchmen kill the family, and the grandmother ultimately only thinks of herself and not the rest of her family. In “A Good Man is Hard to Find”, Flannery O'Connor shows the readers multiple meaning of symbolism throughout the characters relations to faith, places, and outlook on their surroundings.

Throughout the short story, “A Good Man Is Hard to Find,” a grandmother goes on vacation in Florida with her son and his family. She is wary of an escaped criminal who may possibly be there, but no one takes her worry into consideration. The family eventually comes face to face with the criminal and lose their lives because of it. In “A Worn Path,” an elderly woman begins a long and tiresome journey in an effort to reach a town to acquire medicine for her sick grandson. The stories “A Good Man Is Hard to Find,” written by Flannery O’Connor, and “A Worn Path,” by Eudora Welty, have distinctly different writing styles that impact the story and how they utilize certain literary devices throughout them. The setting, point of view and imagery