...“A Good Man is Hard to Find” How old does one need to be to die and how old is too old to profess one’s faith and receive salvation? What does it take to have salvation and eternal life and how does one show that in a work of literature? In the process of all of the chronological references and religious symbolism, Flannery O’Connor in “A Good Man is Hard to Find” addresses this and draws a parallel to the modern moral dilemma of what it takes to be saved. Written in 1953 and based upon her Roman Catholicism roots, O’Connor conveys how each family member gracefully accepts the previous generation’s quirkiness and cynicism to maintain family unit. Although the younger generations do not respect older ones as much as their parents, her stories have characters that convey her message of religious distrust through each character’s deceptive actions and secular thoughts. Similarly, most of O’Connor’s stories make reference to the good and bad by such subtleness as creatively naming the kids after an outlaw and a founder of a major religion. By such obscurity, she wants to draw a parallel between the true believer and the hypocrites that appear to be religious in actions (May). Like a mirror’s reflection, O’Connor’s story contains several undertones of grace in how the characters are developed in the story. From the grandmother to the Misfit, there is a “forewarning of mortal death in the story as the family travels on their last trip before meeting the Misfit that carries...
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...A Good Man Is Hard To Find Kimberly Samuel A Good Man is Hard to Find by Flannery O’Connor In Flannery O’ Connor’s A Good Man is Hard to Find, the main character is the grandmother’s character is displayed by her reactions and conversations with various characters throughout the story. Through her conversation with Bailey, her son, John Wesley and June Star, her grandchildren, and the Misfit killer. These conversations state the fact that she is from a traditional background and her attitude alternates to fit the surroundings that she is in. The grandmother loses her capacity to comprehend what state of mind that she wants to be in. Throughout the entire story the author utilizes a strong sense of foreshadowing for the people and for the events that occur. O’Connor uses this technique three times in the story, describing the grandmother’s dress, the family’s death, and the grandmother’s conversation with the Misfit Killer. The story starts out with the grandmother being uncomfortable about the family’s upcoming trip to Florida from Georgia. She tries to force Bailey to rethink the entire trip by telling him about what she has read in the newspaper. “Here this fellow that calls himself the Misfit is aloose from the Federal Pen…and read what it says he did with these people…I wouldn’t take my children in any direction with a criminal like that aloose in it” (O’Connor, 2008). Her pleading for the cancellation did not go well and the family prepared to leave the next day....
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...Monika Allen Catharine Vickers Composition and introduction to Lit- 9 February 2016 Who is Deceiving Who? In the story “A Good Man Is Hard to Find,” O’Conner is a very detailed writer that loves dialogue. She made the grandmother the main character that dressed well for age and is a crucial character in the story. She is the one who wanted to go to the plantation; she wanted to bring her little kitty cat that jumps out of the suitcase, which causes the accident on the dirt road. How the family encounters the criminal "Misfit" and his cohorts, someone could argue that the grandmother is the real "misfit". How is the grandmother herself a misfit in the story? Should the grandmother be accounted for being a “misfit?” The Grandmother, Baily, his wife, and three kids wanted to go on a trip. Everyone but the grandmother wanted to go to Florida. They end up going to Tennessee and end up running into three bad people the leader is named the “Misfit”. He and his crew killed the entire family just because the grandmother knew him from the paper that she was reading that very morning. Some may say it was the grandmothers fault why the all got killed because if she didn’t want go to Tennessee the little family wouldn’t have ran into the misfit. If the grandmother didn’t want to go down the dirt road that she thought would lead them to and old house that was never there, and if she didn’t bring the cat that popped out and scared Bailey (the driver) the car would not have...
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...Is A Good Man That Hard To Find? I feel that O'Connor's story fits well with her statement about the South being "Christ-haunted." In fact, I feel that the Misfit, whom at first appeared to me to be a ruthless, sadistic murderer, actually ended up being even more of a 'good person' than any of the members of Bailey's family. I will analyze certain statements made in the story to make my point feasible. “The trees were full of silver-white sunlight and the meanest of them sparkled.” First off, it is pretty obvious to me that the "silver-white sunlight" is supposed to be imagery the reader associates with Heaven. Beyond that, I feel there are two possible meanings to it as a whole, depending on how you interpret the meaning of the word "meanest": either they are being portrayed as cruel, or they are being portrayed as average. In the first case, the trees could almost be approximated with the Misfit in the role of Jesus. In the second case, the trees could be representative of Bailey's family. “They passed a large cotton field with five or six graves fenced in the middle of it, like a small island.” It just so happens that the Bailey family has six members: Bailey, his wife, his mother, and his three children. I feel this is an allusion to the fact that they're going to die later on. The bit about the island may also be significant. In the end, they seemed to be stranded, trapped, and surrounded on all sides by the Misfit and his men, just like an island is surrounded by water...
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...A Good Man Is Hard to Fine: An Annotated Bibliography HUDDLE,DAVID. “The Singular Voice of Flannery O'Connor”. Flannery O'Connor Review. Vol. 13. 2015. p30-39. Huddle describes O’Connor as one of America’s major writers. She writes about issues within southern culture and has spiritual revelations. He compares O’Connor to The Misfit in the story. O’Connor is an artist, a Catholic and a Southern Woman. She uses her traits to build upon the characters of the story. They refer to the Grandmother as a flawed human being. Religion is very important. When the Grandmother reaches out to the Misfit with her religious comment she startles him and he kills her. Even as a villain after killing the Grandmother he is looking for redemption. Larson, Susan T. “A Good Man Is Hard To Find and Other Short Stories”. Masterplots. 4th Edition. Nov. 2010. p1-2. O’Connor is recognized as a significance American fiction writer. The story A Good Man Is Hard To Find has a mixture of humor, violence and religious themes. The Grandmother and family set off to take a trip to Florida. The Grandmother did not want to go there, she wanted to go to Tennessee. She used the story of the Misfits escape but the trip was still on. While traveling the Grandmother disrupts the cat which then causes an accident. A car stops and when the men get out the Grandmother recognizes him as the Misfit. He orders the men with him to kill the family. The Misfit is with the Grandmother and she is trying to...
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...A Good Man Is Hard to Find The meaning of the word foreshadow is to indicate or show beforehand. The author uses foreshadowing to hint to the reader on what is to come. This can also be subtle, and sometimes overlooked. A careful reader might be able to anticipate the ending by paying attention to the context clues, dialogue among characters, and the major aspects of the plot. In the beginning of the story, the author states that grandmother does not want to go to Florida. In addition, in the opening of the story, the grandmother is reading a newspaper article about an escaped prisoner named The Misfit that is headed to Florida. The grandmother then continues to state that she would never take her children into the direction of an escaped criminal. Her worries and complaints were taken lightly as the family packed into their vehicle and headed to Florida. While stopped in Georgia, the family stops at a restaurant to eat and engage in conversation with the owner. While on the topic of The Misfit, the owner’s wife says: “I wouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t attact this place right here” (205). After leaving the restaurant, things start to take a turn for the worse. The family gets into a car accident on a secluded road on the way to an old plantation. Moments later, a car emerged slowly as if the occupants were watching them. When the three occupants get out of the car, “the grandmother had the feeling that the bespectacled man was someone that she knew “(207). Later...
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...up replacing it. Only to find out that it was fake. In Flannery O’ Connor’s short story “A Good Man is Hard to Find” a family finds themselves in a disastrous event, which they would not have been in had they stuck to the original plan. Both short stories have an event of irony within their themes. The theme in “The Necklace” says that you should work for what you want rather than it being given to you. Mathilde had a necklace that she thought was made of diamonds, but it turns out it wasn’t. So, when she gave a real diamond necklace back it was ironic that she always wanted to be rich, and she had been, but only because she had worked...
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...She Would Have Been a Good Woman Flannery O'Connor's story "A Good Man is Hard to Find" uses irony to depict the concept of good as undefinable. This shows in the line, " "In my time," said the grandmother, folding her thin veiled fingers, "children were more respectful of their native states and their parents and everything else. People did right then. Oh look at the cute little pickaninny!" she said, and pointed to a Negro child standing in the door of a shack." " O'Connor grew up in Georgia, surrounded by Southern Protestants and drew inspiration from the distinct region, thus setting the story in Georgia. (Hayes 2) She grew up in a region that was heavily concerned with social place, during the time the "New South" was coming unraveled...
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...As the examination of the short fiction piece “A good man is hard to find” By Flannery O’Connor begins we as readers will dive between the words and examine the morals lying there. Using morals as our guide it is key to begin by saying that the definition of moral does not always pertain to “good” and that our use of it will be mainly as a code of conduct that O’Connor’s characters act through. Mainly this idea will be developed further through the actions of the grandmother, but also with a couple moments that are shown with the misfit as he shows his character. As any reader may allow themselves to believe that the grandmother figure of a story may be one of wisdom and maybe even one of a historical viewpoint. Though as we see in “A good...
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...A good man is hard to find was a very interesting story reading the story made me see how the grandmother and the misfit were alike and different in various ways. Throughout the story, I saw a lot of traits that they had in common like how they a both controlling also how she could have been had religion not been there to help her out in her difficult times. They both have different religious views which cause them to have many problems throughout the story. The misfit and the grandmother are two different people that have different ideas and beliefs in the story one chose a different path from the other. The misfit and his friends spot the accident the grandmother and her family had here we read that the misfit is the oldest person in his gang “He was an older man than the other two. His hair was just starting to turn gray and he wore silver-rimmed spectacles that gave him a scholarly look”. The grandmother thinks he is someone she knew all her life the Misfit in some ways signifies what the grandmother could have been if she did not lose her faith which calmed her negative attitude and it kept her from turning into someone like the misfit which had faith in nothing and had no one to turn too which caused him to turn into a bad man....
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...A Good Man Is hard To Find has different types of themes, but the most significant part centralized on religion has the main idea. The beginning of the movie started with a quotation from the bible " But if our unrighteousness commends the righteousness of God, what shall we say? is God unrighteous who taketh vengeance( I speak as a man)" Romans 3:5. The movie portrayed two characters the Misfit and grandmother as two individuals with a significant background in Christianity. Throughout the movie, both individuals exchanged words citing bible pages. The grandmother is a manipulative woman who has always convinced people to do what she wanted. She probably never had strong faith in God has she had always claimed or portrayed as an old-fashioned...
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...As I was reading Flannery O’ Connors “A good man is hard to find”, the first thing that got my attention was the information about the escaped criminal known as the Misfit. This already creates a suspension the something terrible may occur later on in the story, and also something significant was the family in the story was taking a trip through the state nearby where the misfit escape. So as I keep reading I learn more about the family and the journey they desire to take. They do seem a bit dysfunctional and this may cause problems later on down the road. The Grandmother lives with Bailey and his family. She irks the family but at the same time the love between them is noticed. Baily is annoyed by his mom’s behavior and attitude but he still loves her. Bailey has three kids, John Wesley, June Star, and a baby with their mother. John Wesley is a young eight year old boy who is loud and out of control but is also full of wonder. His sister June seems straight to the point and has her own ideas about how she sees everyone and everything. The baby is still very young and not much information is given about it. The mother seems to be a nice lady with not a bad temper, she is the mother of Bailey’s kids, and her...
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...In the story A Good Man is Hard to Find, by Flannery O'Connor is about a grandmother’s family going on vacation to Florida when a murderer is on loose. Through the story, the family ends up meeting with the murderer and identify him as Mistif. The grandmother kept talking to him about him and how he’s a good man, but in the end he ended up killing the family. I believe that the grandmother caused the death of her family because of the actions she had taken. The author used foreshadowing as a literary device to show the outcome of the family. The author also shown irony in the story when the family met the misfit and how the grandmother mis-read him. The author use foreshadowing in the beginning when they started to introduce people like the misfit and the cat. In the story the grandmother was always kept talking about a murderer on loose. Not just that, the cat played a huge role as Bailey her son, didn’t want to bring the cat. The grandmother first stated it when she...
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...In a short story “Good man is Hard to Find,” Flannery O’Connor’s illustrate all character together with good humor. This story started with family panned to visit Florida, but grandma wants to visit relatives in east Tennessee. Grandma is an unnamed selfish and manipulative leading character care only about herself. In whole story she tries to manipulate everyone including the misfit. At the end of the story, family led into the bad tragedy and everyone get killed. I think, meaning of this story is before we judge other, we need to judge first to ourselves. A short story “For Esma with Love and Squalor” written by J.D Sainger is started with an American soldier receiving invitation from the wedding that he likes to attend,...
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...A Good Man Is Hard To Find Flannery O’Connor “A Good Man is Hard to Find” by Flannery O’Connor tells the gruesome story of a grandmother and her family on their way to Florida for a family vacation, along the way they visit an old plantation from the grandmother’s childhood. O’Connor uses witty characterization and dramatic irony in order to depict the moral of the story: good men, if not impossible, are extremely hard to find. O’Connor expresses her general view towards the male gender and their barbaric nature, while using the image of an innocent, loving family, in opposition to the antagonist in order to provoke sympathy and a deeper understanding of the moral. The use of dramatic irony, strong imagery and unique characterization...
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