Theme Of The Story A Good Man Is Hard To Find

If you were to ask someone what their definition of a happy life would be, they would probably give you an answer like, “having fun.” This is completely untrue in Aristotle’s terms. According to Aristotle, for a man to lead a happy life he must learn each of the intellectual virtues, and practice each of the moral virtues throughout his life. These moral virtues are justice, courage, temperance, magnificence, magnanimity, liberality, gentleness, prudence, and wisdom. With so many virtues to constantly abide by, a man cannot know if he has led a happy life until his life is nearly finished. In the story “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” by Flannery O’ Connor, the question is

“A Worn Path” is a short story written by Eudora Welty. It is based on an elderly African-American grandmother named Phoenix Jackson, who goes for a walk to the town of Natchez on a cold December morning to get some medicine for her ailing grandson. This story speaks of the obstacles Phoenix endured along the way and how she overcame them. The theme, central idea or message that the author wishes to convey to his or her readers, in “A Worn Path” is one of determination. Phoenix Jackson is determined to get to Natchez, in order to get medicine for her grandson; she does not let any obstacles get in her way. The theme of determination is shown in many ways throughout this short story.

A perception of oneself can change the outlook the person has of the world around them. Flannery O’Connor and Charlotte Perkins Gilman use perception in a way that it changes the conclusion of the story. O’Connor’s “A Good Man is Hard to Find” is a gothic story written in 1953 about a grandmother and her family who take a trip and end up in a car crash. O’Connor uses different elements of literature such as setting and point of view to illustrate the story’s characters while keeping the story interesting. Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” written just over sixty years earlier in 1892 is about an unnamed narrator who is sick and is told by her husband John, a very practical man, that she is not suppose to write, socialize, or work. Gilman uses imagery to express the character’s inner thoughts. While their stories use various elements of writing and imagery, Flannery O’Connor and Charlotte Perkins Gilman both use their gothic stories to illustrate how a character’s personal thoughts can change the outcome of the story.

“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.

Today we will be talking about the different literary references used throughout Eudora Welty’s “A Worn Path”. I will explain and decode different techniques used by the author throughout her story. The story is of an old southern African American woman, named Phoenix Jackson, making her way into to town to pick up her grandsons medication from the doctor’s office. But this is no normal old woman. She cannot see and is picking her way with a cane to make her way across a barrage of obstacles. Throughout her journey she comes upon different characters and situations, from these events we will draw our interpretations of the symbolism embedded within the tale.

On an everyday basis people are encountering challenges that stand in their way of them achieving their set goals. However, with determination the vast majority will accomplish the mission they have set out to conquer. In the short story “A Worn Path” written by Eudora Welty in 1940, Phoenix Jackson, the main character has a mission in which she is trying to complete when she is faced with many challenges. This short story is centered on the challenges that are faced by an elderly African-American grandmother as she continues on her long journey from the secluded pinewoods into the town nearby of Natchez. She has one intention in mind when she begins, to get a medicine for her chronically ill grandson no matter what the challenges are that she encounters. The one way to convey this idea to the readers is with the literary use of theme. Some of the major themes in Eudora Welty’s short story is the determination that Jackson conveys with her actions, the aspect of agism, and racism. The most important theme in this story is the emotional and spiritual strength of Jackson which enables her to continue her journey.

“A Worn Path” is set in the South during a time of racism and injustice. Welty utilizes the setting of the story to help readers understand the struggles and hardships faced along the path and in Phoenix Jackson’s life. Welty also allows readers to fathom the battle faced by all African Americans, especially in the South, during this time period. As Phoenix Jackson makes her way pass the cotton field, Welty describes a figure as, “...something tall, black, and skinny there, moving before her.” As a direct effect of Phoenix Jackson’s surroundings and the time period she is living in, she makes the assumption that the figure was a black male that had been lynched. These were the harsh conditions that she had been exposed to most of her life and yet still she persevered through it all. Phoenix is given an opportunity to give up when Welty writes “Over she went in the ditch, like a little puff of milkweed,” but she finds strength to continue her journey. When the hunter points his gun at Phoenix, she

You are sitting in your living room at home watching the nightly news. The lead story for the night is about a family of four that were murdered. After seeing and hearing about something like that we often ask ourselves, What could possess a person enough to kill another human being? What is it that drives a person to kill? Will we ever know? Many authors use this unique mentality in short stories. They write about what the killer thinks and how he/she acts on his/her thoughts. One of these stories is “A Good Man Is Hard To Find”, by Flannery O’Connor. In this story O’Connor’s victim, The Misfit, is an escaped convict. He was in the Federal Penitentiary for killing his father. Throughout the story O’Connor builds up this killers mentality

I firmly believe that people reap what they sew. In the story, “ A Good Man Is Hard to Find,” the grand mother is a prime example of this scenario. Her pathetic ploys and acts of deviance cause harm to the family throughout the story and it ends up coming back to her in the end. You can tell that harms is inevitable for the family by some of the clues that are found in the grandmother’s

     Flannery O’Connor’s “ A Good Man Is Hard To Find” depicts a family’s encounter with a criminal escaped from a federal penitentiary and their essential relinquishment of life. The family that the story surrounds has planned a trip to Florida for a family vacation. Knowing but unconcerned about the criminal at large, also known as the Misfit, the family voyages onward towards their destination until the trip is abruptly stopped by a totally unnecessary exploration down an unkempt, hilly and dangerous road. The dangerous road combined with the unsuspecting attack of the driver from the grand mothers cat, Pitty Sing, lands the family in a ten-foot deep ditch and in need of help. The

Thesis: Eudora Welty paints the picture of a life journey in the short story “A Worn Path” through the use of symbolism, imagery, and tone.

This paper will present a rhetorical context for the use of violence in the short story, “A Good Man Is Hard to Find,” as she presented in her essay “The Element of Suspense.” The form of classical tragedy in this story will also be analyzed from the critical theories of Aristotle and Longinus. Tolstoy will be used to examine the use Christian symbolism. Nietzsche will provide a more well-rounded universal conclusion to the uses of tragedy and spiritual elements in this classic story.

Within the collection of short stories titled The Art of the Short Story, edited by Dana Gioia, there are a surfeit of stories that mirror one another in terms of similar themes, including but not limited to: love, happiness, journeys, etc. Two short stories in particular, “A Good Man is Hard to Find” by Flannery O’Connor and “Shiloh” by Bobbie Ann Mason, share similar aspects pertaining to the dual themes of conflict within the families as well as journeys embarked upon by the main characters of the short stories that lead to the ultimate demise of the families. “A Good Man is Hard to Find” begins with a family conflict arising with relation to the destination of a family vacation. The grandmother of the family makes a suggestion to

Flannery O?Connor A Good Man Is Hard To Find. the setting first takes place in a city the author does not name. The story takes us to many places but they are in the state of georgia. The second half of the story (the important part) is on a dirt road where they wreck and are stranded in the middle of nowhere. The author gives us details about how the forest is deep and dark. This is very symbolic considering their whole family is massacred in these woods and also the family did not know they were going to die in theses scary dark woods.

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.