Week 10 Discussion

In O’Connor’s essay on suspense inside the story “A Good Man Is Hard to Find,” she states “should know what is going to happen in this story so that the element of suspense in it will be transferred from its surface to its interior.” This essentially means that by spoiling the climax of the story the reader is now more invested in how the story will unfold, rather than how the story concludes. The “interior” of this story is the personal journey the grandmother takes. At the very beginning the grandmother is a racist who believes she is superior to others. This contrasts vastly to who she is by the end of story when being faced with possible death, she then sees herself as the hypocritical and flawed person that she is. Overall, this story is not solely about a murder of a family. The author uses the murder and family as a plot device to make a more profound statement on human nature.