The short story “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” has many themes that can be found throughout the text: one of the main themes is manipulation. Many people believe that the grandmother, Bailey’s mom, is just a sweet, old lady who talks too much. Although she does talk a lot, she is not just a sweet, old lady. The grandmother is a manipulator who has different tactics to get what she wants. The first incident where the grandmother was manipulative was in the beginning of the story where she said, “Here this fellow that calls himself the Misfit is aloose from the Federal Pen and headed to Florida…I wouldn’t take my children in any direction with a criminal aloose in it” (O’Connor 1077). In this situation, the grandmother wanted to go to Tennessee instead of Florida so she tried to scare Bailey into taking his family to Tennessee rather than Florida. The second example of when the grandmother was manipulative was when she wanted to go see an old house that she had visited as a child. She knew that if she straight up asked Bailey to go see the house that he would say no. Instead, she gets the children to ask. The grandmother does so when she says, “There was a secret panel in this house,” she said craftily, not telling the truth but wishing that she were, “and the story went that all the family silver was hidden in it when Sherman came through but it was never found…” (1080). She purposely lied about the house to get the kids to nag Bailey until he said yes. After a lot of screaming and crying by the kids, the grandmother found herself heading towards the house. The last event where the grandmother tried to be manipulative was when she was face-to-face with the Misfit. She tried to talk the Misfit into thinking he was a good man by saying, “You’ve got good blood! I know you wouldn’t shoot a lady. I know you come from nice people! Pray! Jesus, you ought not to shoot a lady.