https://www.shenho-hshieh.com/
In the essay about suspense in her story “A Good Man Is Hard to Find,” O’Connor writes writes that readers, like the ancient Greek viewers of tragedy, “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.” We know what the story is about on the surface. What do you feel the story is about in its “interior?”
Also, address comments to others by name so we can all follow along.
110 thoughts on “Week 7 Discussion”
On its surface, the story “A Goodman Is Hard to Find” by Flannery O’Connor is about a family that is brutally murdered while they are on a road trip to Florida. But when we look past its surface, this story is about exposing people’s definitions of good and the hypocrisy that often lies behind it. When we are introduced to the main characters of the story, they appear to be a normal family but as the story progresses we see how selfish and narrow-minded some of the characters are. Especially the grandmother, with her blatant racism and shallow ideals, she honestly believes she is a good person while she judges others based on her rigid beliefs. Believing that what makes a good person is if their beliefs align with hers, but she is brought back to reality when The Misfit challenges her ideology with his own. I find it interesting how she tries to weaponize her religion and her own set of morals to convince The Misfit to not kill her, but not for the rest of the family. It just shows her underlying
selfishness.
Hello Serafina, I agree with you, the story do try to show different versions of what may means to be good. the grandmother is one of the baddest person on the story, she is unaware of the things she do or say toward other people, but she genuinely believes she is good. The debate on been good at heart, comes between the grandmother ideology vs Misfit believes and experience. Its also true she only begged for her own life and not for the life of the family.
Serafina, this is a very astute analysis of the story and especially of the Grandmother’s character. It’s interesting that you write that they appear to be “a normal family” but end up being revealed as selfish and destructive. Many people have good, normal families, but the sad fact is that many families also behave as this one does, and many people also have a Grandmother-like character in their family. I also like what you write about how she tries to use religion in an attempt to manipulate the Misfit, who knows so much more about good and evil than she does.
Hi Serafina.
A thing you pointed out here is she does not engage the Misfit here only but for her own life. I found this to show how she was so blind, that she couldn’t see past her own self. I mean what woman wouldn’t be begging for the life of her own child and grandchildren, but she hears the shots and justs keeps going, yeah she called his name but what did that do, nothing. The sad thing I find is that a lot of us have an older relative that fits right along with Grandma’s qualities, and it doesn’t i think make them an altogether bad person…but certainly foolish, and ignorant and lacking what could have been perhaps a fuller richer life without need a misfit to open their eyes.
Serafina,
I would like to emphasize what you just stated, which is that it is a fallen world, just like the grandmother says it is. But she is wrong to think that she and Red Sammy are exceptions. The grandmother has developed her moral code on the characteristics of what she believes makes people “good.” She presents herself being a lady, for example, which emphasizes appearance over material. At the same time, she repetitively misleads her family and lacks even a basic awareness of the world around her. Despite her apparent love for Christian piety, she herself is unable to pray when she finds herself in a crisis and even starts to question the power and divinity of Jesus.
Serafina, i really enjoy your statement about how the grandmother only believes that a person is good when their beliefs align with hers. The only person in the story that she truly recognizes as a good person in Big Sam and that because he seems to be as obsessed with “the good ol’ days” as she is. When confronted by the Misfit and her mortality, she reaches to find what her values truly are she finds nothing.Telling him he looks like he comes from good people based solely on his attractiveness. This only further showing her only care in the world is appearances. She wants to look nice and seem important but there’s nothing underneath.
Hi Serafina, I agree that the grandmother never takes a critical look at herself to test her own hypocrisy, dishonesty and selfishness while judging other people. Moreover, I also found it interesting when The Misfit kills the whole family, the grandmother never once begs him to spare her children or grandchildren. However, she pleads for her life to be spared because she cannot imagine The Misfit wanting to kill the woman. She seems confident that he recognizes and respects her moral code, as if it will mean something to him, despite his criminal behavior. She tries to drag him into her world, assuring him that he is a good person, but although he agrees with her assessment, he sees no reason to spare her. It is only when the grandmother faces death, in her final moments alone with Misfit, that she realizes where she went wrong in her life. She realizes that instead of being superior, she is imperfect like everyone else. It was a moment of realization that was immediately followed by her death.
Altynai, yes, I’ve always noticed the strange lack of concern by the Grandmother for her children and grandchildren. After the car wreck, she doesn’t even ask how the baby is. She’s just concerned that Bailey will be angry at her. Only at the end does she become a compassionate person, but it’s too late for her family by then.
Hi Altynai, I totally agree with you. I want to say that its odd that she only begs for her own life and not her family’s life. Especially when she hears the gun shots and their screams. I think the author wrote the story with this ending to show us that we should not wait to our death beds or even when we are in a terrible crisis to realize we have done something wrong. Apart of me whishes the author kept the grandmother alive so she could live with excruciating pain for being a bitter selfish lady and not caring for her family’s life. But when I think about it she probably wouldn’t even feel remorse and still go about life thinking she’s a good person.
Hello Serafina, I agree with your analysis on the grandma. I was really surprised with the ending honestly. when the Misfit killed the grandmother I thought he would have had a change of heart or at least show some remorse towards killing an elderly in cold blood but that was not the case. The Misfit did not fell for her ideology of s good person and did not give her the treatment she was hoping to get after she tried to manipulate him into believing what was eight for both of them.
I agree with you Serafina, about the grandmother’s personality in the story and how she is trying to manipulate all the people around her for her selfish reasons, and also how she was trying to bring her religious beliefs when she is with the misfit. The other reason that I agree to is when the family starts as a normal family but the more we read they change into their true self. The important thing in this story was the lack of care from the grandmother to the children throughout the trip.
Hi Serafina. I completely agree with your perspective on the story. At first they seemed like a normal, typical family but as the story unfolds you see how messed up the characters truly are. Personally, the grandmother was my least favorite character for those exact traits that you mentioned and to be honest she deserved what she got at the end because she judges everyone, whether or not they had any personal interaction with her, for example the little negro boy they saw while on their way to Florida and her blaming Europe for the way things were. It is also because of her cunning personality that landed everyone in that situation in the first place, had she put aside her own selfish motivations she would have been able to save herself and family from getting into the accident and being killed by the Misfit.
I believe the story on its surface is about a family going out on a trip, during the story we get to know each character. The grandmother is the protagonist and a very selfish person, next is Bailey a quiet boy, June star is rude, and john is similar to June, and the mother. This are the characters that the story talks about, a family on a road trip that will end on a terrible demise, a man named Misfit along with two others kill the entire family, that’s the whole story. But now in its interior is an actual debate, on what’s good and bad, what makes a good person and a bad person, who deserve to be spear and who doesn’t. For example, the story is called, “A Good Man Is Hard to Find”, I believe is called like that because in the story, there it seems that none of the character mention are completely good, or clean, more specifically the grandmother and Misfit, those are the characters that I will talk about. For example, the grandmother was selfish, and racist, making clear of it throughout the story, now doe to her behavior towards other people, would she deserve to be saved? Is she good on her hearth? Misfit say it clear she would only be a good person if she had a gun pointing at her. On the other hand, Misfit, maybe a good person on heart but doe to the stuff he has experience, he doesn’t seem a reason worthy enough to be good, as he said that he was put on reformatory/jail for a crime he didn’t record doing, and whiteout mattering what he does, the police have “the papers”. it all come to bottom down on being actual good but end of broken by life vs been an actual bad person, and with no punishment for it.
I absolutely agree Jon, especially with interesting point made in the end regarding how the misfit is good, but misguided by misery, and how a self proclaimed good person is actually bad and is not punished. The story seems to bring about a large sense of irony and hypocrisy as the grandmother, flawed in so many ways (ranging from insensitive racial comments, to over emphasizing physical appearance and being a lying manipulator is murdered by a cold blooded killer who is much more self aware, and with much more potential for goodness.
Hey Jon, I agree with your statement that none of the characters in the story are totally good or clean. The characters’ actions and beliefs range in different shades of grey, which can be said about average people; we are not entirely bad but not entirely good either. But when we are introduced to The Misfit, he fits the archetype of bad but when we see what his justifications are for his actions, he becomes more complex. He was wronged by the system and believes there is no good within people, he is misguided. That can be said for a lot of people that act in bad faith.
Jon, you raise so many interesting points here. I’m very intrigued by O’Connor’s labeling of the Misfit as a prophet gone wrong. As you write, he could have gone in the direction of goodness. As O’Connor writes in her essay about the story (Activity 1), he is the character with the largest capacity for goodness. However, he decides to take the other road. His reasons for doing so are murky, however. I’m not sure I believe his story about his life, but I do see that he has no faith in anyone or anything. To believe without seeing requires faith, and he is faithless. Because he can’t see goodness (until the Gradmother touches him), he cannot believe in it.
Hey Jon I agree with what you that some of the characters were not good people and that the grandmother the whole story was a bad person until she is faced in a life or death moment with the Misfit. And on the other hand the Misfit seems to be a very bad character which he is, but his life seems to be the reason for breaking and corrupting him and once he is put in prison he doesn’t see any reason to go back. Which by no means gives him any excuses for becoming the person he is but its definitely important to look at the thing that made the misfit who he was. But for the grandmother from what I read its not really the unfairness of life that makes her a bad person.
Jon! you make an interesting point about what the interior of the story is about. As you mentioned, the characters in the story non seems to be entirely good especially the grandmother who is racist and selfish. The misfit was probably at one point in time a good person but he does not believe in goodness because he has never seen it before. The misfit knows he is not a good man and he also knows people are not good either, this including the family he kills.
Jon, your comments touch on the complexity of interpretations of what is bad or good. You mention the Misfit’s very astute comment that the Grandmother only finds stores of goodness when a gun is pointed at her head. At the same time, you consider whether the Misfit might have been good had he not been treated very badly. I sense from your words that you have some sympathy for the Misfit. The author herself expresses in her essay that the Misfit has more capacity for goodness than any of the other characters. So you raise a good question about what went wrong.
Jon, you’ve just shown beautifully why the story is called “A Good Man Is Hard to Find.” Red Sam and his wife are also not the most charming people. In O’Connor’s view, it’s not enough to just not be bad. You should be as good as the Misfit is bad.
Hi Jon, I completely agree with your statement. In the story all the characters are completely good or clear. You made a really good point where the Misfit maybe a good person but he does not believe in goodness. Because in his life he never see the goodness for him self. Also, about grandmother how she is very self centered and think that she is a good person.
Although I largely looked at the story at a surface level in the start, reading the “where is the goodness” lecture did I really agree with what I read, and overlooked initially. For one, I was lost in the meaning behind the grandmothers last gesture where she touched the “misfit” in the shoulder and called him her son. I took this literally, and thought I had somehow overlooked tiny details pointing to such, however from the lecture they point out the gesture was the only true sign of goodness in the grandma. This is very telling because “Up to this point she has been using every trick in her little playbook to convince him not to kill her”, and in her final moments she has genuine (not fake) compassion and empathy for the misfit and seems to truly care for his wretched life. This brings a new meaning to the story as the idea of good men being rare is brought up repeatedly, however epiphany of the grandma is the only action of goodness seen in the entire story.
Jonathan, I’m glad you mention the “gesture” at the heart of this story. O’Connor describes it so clearly in her essay about the story (Activity 1). I like what you write about this gesture being the only bit of goodness in the story. And it’s not as if the characters are evil (except for the Misfit). They are just not very good. And O’Connor’s view is that a true Christian should be very good, not just grey like these people. In her essay, O’Connor also writes that she likes to think that the Grandmother’s gesture will grow in the Misfit’s heart and cause enough pain for him to “become the prophet he was always meant to be.” This idea is like Aristotle’s criteria of amplitude—that the gesture will have a ripple effect.
Joathan,
I was in the same position as you. I was so confused as to the need to shoot the grandmother when she is trying to show compassion to the Misfit. When I read the lecture, it was like the last piece to a puzzle. Before reading the lecture, i thought that the grandma was trying to escape from murder by trying to convey goodness into the killer. then when she said ” You are one of my own children”, it dawned on me that she actually had compassion for the Misfit but not for anyone else. Throughout the entirety of the story, it emphasized her negativity and selfishness, yet when in the face of death true sympathy and compassion are all she gives. Even when her forgetting that the house that she was talking about that led them to their own deaths, she even said that she wouldn’t tell her son that their house was in another state.
We know what the story is about on the surface. What do you feel the story is about in its “interior?”
I found most things in the interior of this story to be riddled with religious christian significance. Right from the very name of the story. When I first looked at the title, I thought we were going to be talking of a romance /tragedy type of novella, but as I read on it was evident that “A Goodman Is Hard to Find,” is not talking about just a man….but it is talking about the heart of a man/woman that makes us spiritual beings that have to answer for our actions to a higher being. O’Connor herself says in, her excerpt (activity 1) “the devils greatest wile, Beudelaire has said, is to convince us he doesn’t exist. Grandma is this story really thinks that she is a good person with a good heart and does not see that her selfishness, prejudice and self interest have lead to the killing of her entire family which, is what claims to wanting to avoid from the begining off the story when she read the misfit was loose. I believe the Misfit which orchustrated these murders plays the victim because he is trying to shift the blame society views him with. It is not clear about if he did or did not kill his father but I believe he probably did and because he feels there is now redemption for him he’d rather indulge in it. Misfit states, ” If one does not believe, then it’s nothing for you to do but enjoy the few minutes you got left the best way you can –by killing somebody
or burning down his house or doing some other meanness to him. No
pleasure but meanness,” he says. These are the words of a psychopath, whose words were used to reveal this womans foolishness in the last few moments of her life, perhaps giving her a moments to repent before she new she was going to die. Maybe the misfit in his craziness thought that by giving her this he might be redeeming himself, i’m not sure, but it in indeed an unsettling story.
Ok just wanted to add to my comment because this seems to be a story that stays with you which is i quess why its so famouse. So i’m just putting it out there that I do not see the Misfit as having anything good in him. I believe he was used for a higher purpose even in his evilness but I do not believe he has redeeming qualities. What does it mean to say sorry that you don’t have a shirt on, when you will be wearing the shirt on the son and husband of the woman you said it to after killing him? So I just feel that while Grandma is no saint here… neither is Misfit. I’ve read several things on -line about redeeming qualities and although i’ve gone under the surface of the story I still see the Misfit as so evil, and I didn’t see anything redeeming in his character regardless of his trying to play the victim. I even notice that he sends the dumb Bobby lee to kill 5 of the 6 people killed that day and then tells him to take her where he had thrown the rest of them as if to detach himself and accuse someone else, in this I find him just as foolish about himself as Grandma was.
Janine, yes, this is the story that “hangs on and expands in your mind.” Notice that the Misfit doesn’t actually ever dirty his hands with murder; he leaves that to his minions. Thanks for all the great observations about this very complex and layered story.
A correction… I meant .., because he feels there is NO redemption for him he’d rather indulge in it.
Janine, you have so many great observations in this post, especially about the religious significance and the meaning of the word “good.” O’Connor does not see any good characters in this story. She believed that true Christians should be as devoted to goodness as the Misfit is to evil. He is the one character who actually seems to have a moral compass. He knows right from wrong, but unfortunately, has chosen the path of darkness. He has devoted himself to the darkness, as you point out with the quote you share. Like you, I don’t believe his claim of innocence. I think he believes that no one is good, so he shouldn’t be punished for being bad.
On the surface the story “ A Good Man is Hard to Find” is about a family a pretty big family as well but they are on vacation to Florida. Which comes to a tragic end with all of them being murdered by three escaped criminals. They hadn’t even made it to Florida yet they were still traveling there and the grandmother had an idea to visit an old plantation and on the dirt road on the way that’s where they had an accident and ended up all being murdered.
But if you look beneath the surface and really think what makes a person good or bad and if you look at the grandmother she was very old fashioned and was stubborn she placed value on the superficial things and not the important values that reflect you are a good person to other people. And in the end the selfish decisions she made and lied to the kids about what they would find at the plantation ended up being the demise of all of them. Of course there were other factors included like the escaped criminals and the accident but it all started with the lies from the grandmother.
Neil I agree with some points you made about Grandmother being superficial and selfish. She even judged her own race and kind of people. Willfully admitting that people of color couldn’t afford certain things just because they didn’t have them. Even when her cat caused the car crash I feel as though she didn’t care much for what her hiding about being in the wrong state did to her family. It was her fate to meet The Misfit.
I agree with you Neil. The lies of the grandmother put all this in motion. It’s very relational though to every day life, regardless of what religious faith of a person. I know people who are grown adults and are carrying secrets around that they think will never catch up with them and they are pretty decent people. I think, (even with the Oedipus piece we read earlier) man by keeping secrets tries to escape a fate but usually by doing this, runs right into it. Grandma originally said she wouldn’t go anywhere that the misfit was near and yet by not admitting that her memory had failed her, she ran her family right into the misfits hand and ultimately to death.
Neil! I agree with your comments on the grandmother being stubborn and places value on superficial things instead of on things that add value to people. She manipulates her family as she tries to scare her son about the misfit escaping from prison. Her selfishness act of bringing her cat on the trip even though she knows Bailey didn’t want the cat on the trip caused the fatal accident. The lies she told about the plantation and her self-righteousness caused her family demise.
Hey Neil, I agree with you as this whole murder was the Grandmothers fault and on the fact that she is a stubborn person. If she wasn’t so stuck on the idea of taking the children to the plantation, they probably wouldn’t have gotten murdered. Maybe if she had just left everything alone and not been so stubborn to have it her way, they might’ve had an accident where the killers just so happened to not be on their route.
Neil, you are totally right. Everything starts with the Grandmother when she decides to bring the cat on the trip, knowing Bailey doesn’t like to travel with the cat. When the cat springs from the basket and leaps on Bailey, he loses control of the car, and the rest is history, as they say.
Hi Neil, I agree with you. In the article, the grandmother is a selfish and mean person. Her blind confidence in the family and her views on the society led to her being killed in the end. Her communication with family members are superficial and not very sincere, and she has no sympathy for black people. She and other family members would not have been killed if it had not been for her stubborn desire to visit the plantation. All because of her lies and hypocrisy.
The interior of Flannery O’Connors”A Good Man is Hard to Find,” is that she uses her two characters, the grandmother and the Misfit, to the transformative potential of human love and grace. The grandmother exemplifies the conventional hypocritical Christian. To begin with, she judges others without inspecting herself. She lied, she did not confess that they were heading to the wrong house once she came to the realization. She doesn’t ask the Misfit to spare her family’s life just hers, you can read that she called out for Bobby Boy but that was all she did. She says “ You wouldn’t shoot an old lady”. In the end, the power of grace and compassion is revealed. Before her death, the grandmother realizes that she is not a saint and that she and the Misfit are the same. She refers to him as “one of my own children!”. Here the grandmother offers her love to the Misfit. This is grace, the ability to love someone who you should hate. The grandmother’s death impacts some hopeful change in the Misfit in that after killing her. He admits that she could have been a moral individual if someone had been around “to shoot her every minute of her life.” Before this act, the Misfit had confessed that meanness was the only pleasure in life. However, after the incident, he admitted that there is no real pleasure in life. It can be that maybe that killing the grandmother did not please him, grace had started working in him too.
Khadijah, thanks for this excellent post. I agree that the Grandmother is the quintessential “hypocritical Christian.” She’s not evil; she’s just thoughtless and selfish, drifting through life unaware of the harm she does. I appreciate, however, how you are able to get past all this in your discussion of her redemption and moment of grace. The author would love your post because she has written that she likes to think of how the Grandmother’s moment of compassion changes him forever. This is where O’Connor sees the goodness in this very dark story.
I feel that “A Good Man is Hard to Find” focuses on how people can alter and change their intentions depending on the circumstances. Grandmother was very manipulative and only thought about herself and because of that it costed her her life and her family. The difference between The Misfit and Grandmother is that The Misfit was punished for something he didn’t do and Grandmother wasn’t punished for things she did do. For example, she dragged her family down a road in the wrong state and instead of saying something, she stood quiet. She was only thinking of herself and not her family. Even when she got separated from them I feel like she felt more sympathy and pity for herself. The Misfit was able to read her like a book and that’s because of the path he encountered in his life. He could sense there wasn’t anything genuine in what was being said about him. I believe the Misfit would’ve genuinely helped Grandmother and her family had she not insulted his character and judged him. She showed fear before knowing who he really was and that is why he said she would have to be held at gunpoint for the rest of her life to be a good person. She’s not authentic. She’s only authentic when the needs fit her.
Hi Regina, I agree with you. Grandmother is very selfish and sacrifices not only her life but also her family. She stood there without going to help her or doing anything even when her family was in danger. But when she is struck by gunpoint, she talks a lot to help herself. And she makes the wrong decision to help her. But she believes she was wrong in her judgment because she eventually did not help her as well as her family.
Hello Regina, I totally agree when you said that she would have left the family is if she had not identified him and told him the person he is or the person he needs to be according to her views. I believe it was very selfish of her to loudly scream that he was the Misfit when she recognized him, this would have changed the outcome of the story. Although just like the tragedy of Oedipus Rex, it could have been destiny that guided them to that outcome. I believe this story to be driven by character and not by faith because only the actions of the grandmother caused the tragedy to happened and she was fully aware that her actions had a bad impact at times but still she kept acting selfishly and thus causing great pain to the family.
Regina, I think you give the Misfit a little too much credit when you imagine he might have had some mercy for the family if the Grandmother had not judged him. As you write, he was able to read her like a book. He knew more about her than she knew about herself. She is the type of person, so hard-headed, as O’Connor wrote, that only violence has the power to change.
Regina,
Yes, unfortunately, the grandmother only had this epiphany of authentic emotion when she had already cost so much tragedy to her family from her selfish desires. At that point, she was close to death, and her family was all killed, so even though it seemed like she might have realized her errors, it was almost as if it was in vain, she could never make up for what she has caused. I suppose then the misfit is the one who may go on in life hopefully more enlightened from this experience. When the grandmother surprised him with genuine emotion, it seemed he almost felt something too at that moment.
From my perspective the story “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” on its surface is about a vain manipulative and self-center grandmother who plans to go on vacation to Georgia with her family. Alarmed by a newspaper story that there is serial killer on the loose, the grandmother attempts desperately to persuade the family to change their vacation destination from Georgia to Tennessee. But when we delve deeper into the story we discover that not only does the grandmother consider herself a “lady” that is morally superior to others, but she often passes judgment on others without inspecting her own hypocrisy, egoism and untruthfulness. Throughout the reading we can sense the family disrespect and disagreement which characterizes the family’s relationships with one another. The first observation I made was how the words “good man” are repeated within this story as the grandmother is having a conversation with the misfit. And the intriguing twist in the story is when the Misfit admits his moral standing and honestly lives it. However, it sets him apart from people like the grandmother in some interesting ways. After all, he was capable of bringing out the grandmother’s humanity. In her final moments of clarity, she acknowledges that she is as flawed as the Misfit, and her comprehension of family is expanded to include humanity as a whole. And she finds out that a good man is indeed hard to find.
Hi Fatu! I agree with you completely. The grandmother fully disregards the fact that she has flaws of her own. I believe that her life being threatened helped her come to her senses and realize that she is not superior but in fact possibly inferior. She’s not as great as she believes she is. It is pretty interesting to mention how “good man” was repeated many times throughout. It’s kind of ironic that the grandmother would call someone that when she’s not even a “good man” herself. So for her to call someone else that, it makes you think how do you know what being a “good man” looks like.
Fatu, what a good point you make about how the Misfit is able to finally elicit a speck of kindness from the Grandmother. I also like your comment about his honesty. Unlike the others in the story, he does not pretend to be a good man. He knows he is a bad man. At the same time, he knows that the people in this family are not particularly good either. He has higher standards than they, as you note. He lives by his beliefs with a passion.
In Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man is Hard to Find”, a tale is told about a highly dysfunctional family having an unfortunate run in with a violent criminal after a car accident on a trip to Florida. The surface of the story is quite blatant and told directly to you, but under that is a story of the death of the goodness. The family is representation for the ideal American nuclear family except it has none of those qualities. The “perfect American family” consists of 2 or 3 polite children, happy parents, and loving grandparents. This family has none of these. Whining bratty children, a flagrantly racist and self-centered grandmother, and silent emotionally dead parents. In this story evil continually triumphs. For instance, the children over the parents, the grandmother over the family, and the Misfit over the grandmother. The character who embodied the most good was baileys wife or the children’s mother and to show how little those qualities are appreciated, she isn’t even given a name. The mother and the misfit on the other hand are arguably the main characters of this story. To further illustrate the death of goodness, bailey has all but coincided when the men take him into the woods. I believe he does this because spiritually he is already dead. The author is trying to show that the evils in this world will prevail and those who succumb to it will go sooner those those who utilize it.
I believe the story on the interior is about is there really goodness in people, what is considered good and bad. The story on the surface is about a family on a road trip to Florida who will meet their demise by a killer. The characters in the story especially the grandmother is very selfish and from the onset she manipulates the family into what she wants. She is racist and ignorant and this is seen in they way she talks about the black child. She believes she is a good influence to her grandchildren when in reality she is not but she really believes she is a good person. I think her selfishness caused the death of her family by the ”Misfit” and the two other men”. The misfit on the other hand knows right from wrong but he choose his path of being a bad person and does a good job at it. He believes he cannot be worthy of goodness and if the papers said he did something terrible, he probably did. The Misfit is now confronted with this grandmother who honestly believes she is a good person and tries to set her believes on him but he see right through her lies. He kills the grandmother because he does not believe there is goodness and believes she is not really good because to him one must be wholeheartedly good at all times, not only good when a gun is pointing at them.
Hi Treshel, like you I came to the same conclusion that the grandmother’s selfishness caused the death of the whole family. I found it very interesting that her only act of kindness was to her killer. In the excerpt “On Her Own Work” O’Connor wrote, “In my own stories I have found that violence is strangely capable of returning my characters to reality and preparing them to accept their moment of grace. Their heads are so hard that almost nothing else will do the work”. I think that this can explain not just the Misfit and the grandmother actions at the end of the story, but also many people in real life that wait until the last opportunity for a wake-up call and be a better self.
I agree with you Treshel when you stated ” I think her selfishness caused the death of her family by the ”Misfit” and the two other men”. I believe her family was killed because of her fake impression and throughout the story you can notice the changes. I honestly never seen a grandmother like this one because in my opinion a grandmother should influence positively and love her family no matter the circumstances. But in the situation they were put on a life or death the grandmother showed her true colors and its disappointing.
In the story “A Good Man Is Hard to Find,” tells us a story about a family going to a road trip but resulting into them being brutally murdered. I think that story is about in it’s “interior” is trying to show us that these characters are being brought to a moment of crisis point in their lives And throughout the story we notice the character’s self-confidence being destroyed by these moments of crisis, or they can either experience the opposite like a moment of grace. In which it results into the characters to reevaluate their past lives and to see the world in a different way into more spiritual. This makes me realize that the author is trying to show us that it takes up to violence to make us feel awaken into a new world that makes us feel satisfied. For example, the grandmother is a selfish person, racist, and uses religion to manipulate her family. I believe the real reason the family passes away is because of her evilness, and selfishness. The Misfit who believes the grandmother is a good person but he realizes through her lies that she’s the opposite of good.
Also, I believe towards the end the grandmother slows starts losing her self- confidence because she realizes that the misfit is going to kill her.
The story, “A Good Man is Hard to Find”, is about a family taking a road trip that ends in a horrific tragedy on the surface. The detour to go sightseeing that was made while on the road trip, led to the car crashing into a ditch. When looking internally, the story portrays the idea of finding grace and involves christianity. The grandmother is seen as self-centered and not caring or loving towards any of her family members. It seemed as though it took for a life-threatening experience to happen for her to change. Once knowing that her life was at risk she started pleading to God. She then starts to come to the realization that she is not superior and calls The Misfit her “son”, seeing him as her own. This is her finding grace. She has self-reflection and realization but The Misfit still ends up killing her. After killing the grandmother he ways, “She would have been a good woman,” The Misfit said, “if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life.” (140 O’Connor) This proves the point of the grandmother only understanding the meaning of grace and finding it from a life-threatening experience.
ENG 201 Sec. 0527
In the short story “A Good Man is Hard to Find”, O’Connor smartly displays humanity at their most vulnerable state. She displays how people place emphasis on moral ideals till their world is affected and sheds light on the fickle nature of mankind. The reader would remain in deep suspense reflecting on the issue of morality and their true natures. When introduced to the Misfit I could not help but to feel that I was having an encounter with the devil himself. The experience was frightening. Being a southern woman the grandmother’s mannerisms were not that far different from any one else for the most part at that time. So the reader must take that into account, while understanding her moral character from our perspectives, a looking glass. She was so focused on manners and edict that she failed to see any errors within herself. As her sense of morality was based on her values and beliefs. The reader would have noticed this in a few circumstances; such as the scene in the restaurant, where she reprimands June, or when she evaluates the personality of the Misfit saying he is a “good man”. The Misfit and all the others with him had redeeming qualities about them overlooking the fact that they were murderers. I feel that the grandmother represents humanity in general, not by actions she committed, as they may be unique to her, but by our consciousness. The devil was cast down into the pit of hell for the one sin he committed, which similarly to the Misfit has been labelled by that sin. Like the devil himself, the Misfit appears to destroy the grandmother ideals right before he eyes. I think the big meaning behind the story is that people fight and represent their ideals as moral. But are we truly moral or moralistic? When death comes perhaps we will know.
After reading the story ” A Good Man is Hard to Find” ,we as readers found out that the story is about a family who takes a vacation trip and ends up in the hands of a murderer on the surface but what is the real meaning or the interior of the story? I believe what the story is about in its interior is finding grace and understanding the deep truth of Christianity. The grandmother in the story is a selfish lady who possibly misplaced her grace and from the beginning of the story she manipulates the family into things that she wants. She really thinks that she is a good women of faith and has a good heart but it is her selfishness, self-righteousness, and self-interest that brings her family to death. When she becomes more serious due to the serious situation her and her family are in she starts to understand that she has no power and calls him ” my son” as a way to calm him down. It was too late at that time so she ended up paying for the price of being a bad person and got murdered by the misfit as did her family. The misfit in the story tends to believe him killing this family is redemption for him because he possibly killed his father which we don’t know is true.
This story is very interesting and intense at the same time. The characters here reveal life morals, aware the audience by showing how different individuals handle circumstances reflecting their unique personas, how their childhood or upbringing influences their cognitive dissonance. In the story, the two very important characters for me are Misfit and the grandmother. I say this because, by observing these two characters we, the audience can clearly see the two different perspectives or character traits. Misfit, the criminal who is lifeless and has no hope nor faith towards any good things. He certainly seems like the antagonist because of how he is being told that he is a criminal who has escaped from the prison in the story but is he really? Let’s remind ourselves that he was wrongly accused of the murder of his father and put behind bars. On the other hand, the character of the Grandmother is clearly a racist, narcissist, wise old lady. Perhaps a good beholder because of how she recognizes Misfit. Now, the story tells us that this character is a protagonist, a old lady with a healthy and stable childhood. Yet is she really the protagonist? I believe the interior of the story is trying to show us that the hero we are told is not always heroic and that the villains aren’t always the villain. I believe the interior holds a philosophical message that some people intentionally hurt others because of how inhumanely the world treated them. Because of this they become detached from mankind, and are remorseless to find contentment for their sanity despite the violence involved in it. Whereas, some people are free from such torments yet have egotistical and cruel personality traits like the Grandmother. In short, sometimes you need to become a villain to be a hero again.
I think that in its interior the story “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” by Flannery O’Connor is about a sign of ownership on stop pretending to be a good person and start being a good person. In the excerpt “On Her Own Work” the author wrote, “The Grandmother is at last alone, facing the Misfit. Her head clears for an instant and she realizes, even in her limited way, that she is responsible for the man before her and joined to him by ties of kinship which have their roots deeps in the mystery she has been merely prattling about so far. And at this point, she does the right thing, she makes the right gesture”. Like most people, the Grandmother lives all her life pretending to be good and believing that the only good people were the ones who share her belief. But in the end, she realizes that her selfishness brought tragedy to her family, and probably a last good action will save her soul.
Hey Kenia, honestly I didn’t expected anyone to have this sort of take regarding the story and I completely agree with how you worded everything. The idea of not pretending but just being good person is heavily present within the theme of the story. Just as you said, the Grandmother embodies this idea in the reading as her selfishness practically puts them into this position and predicament. I have another example though, being the misfit himself. I believe all his life he pretended to be a good person but after being locked up he decided enough is enough and shows his true colors. Even when he first approached them, maybe he was going to help out before being identified and decides to be himself and do what he wants to.
Kadeem i didn’t really think about the misfit before he was in jail. i agree with the idea of the misfit pretending to be a good person. I also agree with how the idea of not pretending but being a good person is heavily present within the theme of the story. as the story goes on you really see how there true colors show and you see it slowly build which is why I believe the story was interesting.
Kenia, I love to see someone referencing the essay by O’Connor, which sheds so much light on this story. I think the author would agree with you that the people in this story are all pretending to be something they are not—except for the Misfit. I don’t know if the Grandmother actually realizes anything at the end, except that the Misfit is a human being like her own child. She doesn’t get much time to think about her sins. The moment she touches the Misfit, he cannot bear the kindness, and shoots her.
ENG 201 Sec.0527
Kenia, I found myself exploring similar details. The grandmother had so many values on what is proper and mannerable, but upon closer look at the individual, her morals are nothing more than a representation of her ignorance. She had several failing qualities as a person. She carried herself above others in her individual views of what a lady is, assuming that her views are universal to all. In a foolish attempt to save herself from the impending doom, declares her lady status, as if her notions weighed more so than the views of others. The one redeeming quality that the Misfit had was that he was genuine. A murderer of course but true to his nature. In my post I pointed out the comparison of the Misfit and the devil, even though this wasn’t intended by the author there are remarkable correlations, when the grandmother was at crossroads. Prior to revealing that in her essay, O’Connor does make an interesting description of the Christian view as well as quote Baudelaire, “The devil’s greatest wile is to convince us he does not exist”. I feel the author used such violent imagery to point out the darkest natures within ourselves. This provides a deep reflection of our inner morality, like you stated in your post, Kenia, “a sign of ownership”. After reading the story, I found myself pondering similar notions to conclude that even though the woman claimed she was moral she in truth was not. It points to a very human quality where we all take stances on many things, and apply moral views and ethics, requiring others to act responsibly. I wonder do we point out actions based on the principles of right and wrong and live by example, or are we self-righteous like the grandmother? I finish of with saying that in agreement to your post we should all broaden our minds and find understanding in things that we don’t and take ownership of our actions.
I believe we can all agree when it comes to what the story is about on its surface level. On the surface the story follows a family heading to Florida for a vacation. This family ends up getting murdered by a group of mischief with one being infamously known as the misfit, if my memories serves me correctly he is on the run and escaped jail recently. I don’t know who the blame because it could be the grandmother due to her forgetting that the house they were going to is in Tennessee not Georgia, or the dad because be crashed, or the cat for distracting the Bailey, or even the kids for nagging and whining to see the house. When it comes to the interior of the story, that now becomes something that will be interpreted differently from person to person. The story on its interior is a challenge as to what it means to be good. Is it justifiable for someone who claims to be innocent to be locked up and then become the very thing he was falsely accused of? We can also take a look at the grandmother, she attempts to persuade the misfit into sparing her and the family, telling him that he’s a good person just based on looks. Is she a good person though, she lied and she is unaware of her own derogatory remarks. Is Bailey good, he threw the cat against a tree, people in today’s society would consider that animal abuse. Are the children good, they make rude and disrespectful remarks consistently throughout the story. Basically what I am saying is that, the story itself inspects the idea of goodness and a goodman/woman
.
We know that the surface of the story is a family wanted to go on vacation but end up getting brutally murdered after they have an accident. I believe looking past the surface of the story, the interior is about who is really a true definition of a good person. The surface of the story, of course, paints the Misfit to be the bad person obviously cause he just murdered the whole family, but is he really the only bad person besides his henchmen? Looking deeper into the story, we can see that the Grandmother isn’t so much of a good, godly person herself. Although towards the end of the story we see that she’s praying for her life and the families and trying to spread the words of Jesus onto the Misfit, she’s actually very prejudice and none of it would’ve happened if she wasn’t so stuck on teaching the children her beliefs and old life. She made many racist remarks and stereotypical comments such as the watermelon with E.A.T carved into it. She convinces the children that there’s a treasure on the plantation, rerouting their trip down a dirt road that seemed to not have been used in years. From my idea, the grandmother is very old fashioned and wants her family to have the same views as she did, thinking that this was alright and normal when in fact it wasn’t. She has passionate beliefs and tries to force them upon others that she is around.
The interior of the story left me confused When I speak of confusion, it is meant in a good way… let me explain. The identification between good and evil does not seem like choices but instead, they seem like aspects and characteristics. Someone can still be evil and do good things and they can also be good people doing bad things. So to me, no one is entirely good or evil, except for the Misfit of course where he devotes himself to be strictly bad. When did the creation of the grey area become acceptable for people who think that they are good but not for the people who think that they are evil? How long can one go with saying they are good while doing bad things to be labeled as evil? Who labels certain actions and aspects as good or bad as a whole? There are so many things in this world that is good like technology, but there are many things in the world this bad like, global warming. This interior left me with more thought-provoking questions.
Megan, I agree that this story can bring up some very intricate moral and philosophical questions. Just the question about the nature of goodness is huge! This is what literature can do to us.
This story starts off by a grandmother having to convince her son to move to Tennessee for vacation. Originally, they wanted to go to Florida but in the newspaper there was a convict who escaped. As they are on their trip they past by what they thought was a plantation and head there but ended up lost realizing that it was in Tennessee and end up crashing there car and meet the convict. Good man is constantly being repeated by the grandmother which is surprising. I don’t know if I am correct but the family seems abnormal to me almost superficial. They seem fake and good is constantly being repeated. I sense a lot of fakeness and that is how I feel about the interior of the story. Its almost as if the grandmother is a hypocrite which is the vibes she gives out. That is how I feel about the interior of the story.
Mark, I agree with how you see the family, there’s always more beyond what the own character shows and you can tell as the story progresses they have little things themselves that don’t sit quite right, mainly the grandmother. In the end it just shows how all people are the same in certain ways or at least that’s how i see it, specifically people have some sort of bad in them.
The short story “A Good Man is Hard to Find” by Flannery O’Connor, on the surface, tells the story of a family deciding to go on a family trip that ends in tragedy. Grandmother, Bailey, Bailey’s wife and three children are going to visit Florida. At first glance, they seem like good people. However, in the “interior” this story demonstrates how eldest children John Wesley and June Star really are very rude and ignorant. The mother devotes herself to her children and does not have enough time for a fulfilling life. The father seems to be unhappy with his children. Finally, the grandmother thinks only of herself, not paying due attention to her family. In other words, in its “interior” this story is about the real qualities of their family. In the story, the grandmother put her own interests at the head, not the interests of her family. As a result, the tragic ending fell on everyone. Using the example of a grandmother, the author shows how the desire to achieve personal needs affects everyone in her family. A grandmother, a completely selfish woman, her selfishness is reflected in the way she acts, how she interacts with her family, even how she dresses. The grandmother is not only ignorant but also manipulative. She effectively manipulates her family members according to her interests. For example, she takes her cat on a trip despite Bailey. As a result, the cat becomes the cause of a terrible car accident. The grandmother’s selfish goals create dangerous circumstances for the family and they get into a car accident and meet with The Misfit.
Altiynia I agree with everything you have said and I like how you were able to tell how each family member only thought about themselves. I mostly agree with what you have said about the grandmother she manipulated the children into believing that the house was something special only to come to the realization that the house was not in that place and even after coming to this realization she did not tell her son anything she stayed quiet so that he would not be upset with her and the family being in this spot is what led them to get killed because the grandmother was too worried about what she wanted.
This “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” is a story about being killed while traveling with a family in a car. The grandmother in the story is a person who repeats unconscious self-centered behavior, and she wants to help her grandmother’s actions when she is about to be shot by a gun. The desire is appearing. She repeats that she used to be good, and she arbitrarily decides that you are a good person. I think that is because she does not have to think about herself and think deeply. However, on the other hand, the shallow words and ways of thinking can be annoying if you are with her, but if you are far away, even though you are shallow, when you face a person, you treat the other person with a fundamental kindness. He is such a person who reminds me of the warmth of how things are viewed. Also, the grandmother, who was only thinking about escaping death, thought that her son’s clothes when talking to the Misfit meant that his son had died, and this situation Experience “living and dying” by facing the death of the son. At that time, she accomplishes a kind of transcendence. She then thinks her grandmother is expressing her love.
Ril, yeah honestly the grandmother was more fixated on sticking to her own ideals and her life then her own family. Stubborn to the end it shows the kind of character she really is, and I’m sure the Misfit recognized it and knew that even they had issues, especially her. But he’s never seen anything else so what else could he follow if you know what I mean
The story “A Goodman is Hard to Find” is about the family going for a road trip in Florida. On their way to road trip the family were in a problem.The story talkes about four different characters but I will focus on grandmother. Grandmother was thinking about her self in other word self-centered. Also, she was very narrow minded. when the Misfit was trying to kill her and she tells Misfit about her religion so that he don’t kill her. How selfish that she was not doing that for her family.
Shapla, it’s great to hear from you, but please be sure that your posts meet the length requirement and address the question being posed.
I agree that the grandmother was acting pretty self-centered when the Misfit was killer her family because of how she seemed more focused on her own core beliefs than her family, especially since they were being executed right in front of her.
Marvin, please be sure to address comments to others by name and be sure your posts meet the length requirements.
“A Goodman Is Hard to Find” by Flannery O’Connor starts of like any regular road trip story. It takes a big turn when the family is murdered by an escaped convicted “Misfit”. As we read deeper into this story we can see how the whole family actions come to place into their violent demise. The grandma is shown to be a racist, self centered, manipulative person, the kids “John Wesley” and ” June Star” are obnoxious and disrespectful. We can see as the story goes on we are introduced to the “Misfit” and show how all of them as a family are self centered. The main reason why this family was put into this situation is because of the grandma and we can see how unaware she is for putting them into this situation.The “Misfit” brings her back to reality by slowly killing off all the family members and raises the question do people show their real self’s when coming face to death? The “Misfit” himself is portrayed as a god like character who decides peoples faith but is really just twisted like the family.
Brian I agree with you when you say that each family member was self centered in there own way. Each family member in this story only cared about them selves it was just the grandmother that only cared about herself but all of them. I also agree with what you have said about The Misfit he feels as though he is a god and takes no responsibility for the things he has done because he feels he has no choice and is not in the wrong but the truth is he is no better then the self centered and obnoxious family.
In the story “A good man is hard to find” by Flannery O’Connor, is talking about a family that murdered on their way going to Florida by a misfit that have escaped. The story is basically showing each main character of the story by their cover and how they are acting as a nice and kind family, but in each character, they all have different intentions, throughout the trip. The deeper the story goes the more charters of the story start changing into their dark side inside them. When the family seen the misfit they try to escape, especially the grandmother tries to convince the misfit to not kill her, and starts asking him religious questions, in order to distract him from murdering her and the family. The grandmother throughout the story is racist and rude towards other people but when she is faced with death that makes her a good person, by the pressure that is in.
On the surface of the story “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” it looks as if the story is about a selfish grandmother who only thinks about herself and no one else however when you look at the interior of the story you can actually see how much the grandmother cares about her family. Towards the ends of the story the grandmother begins to have a conversation with The Misfit to try and beg for her family’s lives, she has conversations with The Misfit trying to make him feel better about himself so that he and his men would spare his family, the grandmother did this up until the end where at last the The Misfit killed her. Through out the story the grandmother did things to try and make her grandchildren and her son happy, she told her grandchildren stories throughout their car ride in order to amuse them and make them feel better. Now it was true that if it weren’t for the grandmother bringing the cat that she and her family might still be alive she is not the shallow self centered person we believe she is, she is actually a very caring person and cares for her family deeply.
Chaydevi i disagree with your statement about the grandmother caring about her family even at the end i believe the only reason she tried to bargain with the misfit was for her own advantage when realizing that even that wasn’t working a little bit of good was seen come out of the grandma, but it was towards the mufti not her family. She left her family pretty much to fend for themselves while trying to manipulate the whole situation for her best interest.
On the surface of this story we see an entitled and snobby family going on a vacation to Florida that takes a very violent and gruesome road. When we look deeper into the story however we see a little bit of good that we didn’t see much of within the family or The Misfit. When first introduced to all the main characters there really isn’t much good at all in any of them, the grandma is selfish arrogant and just plain out an unpleasant person, the father is a passive and withdrawn from life type of person he lets everything around him just slide and go over his head which ends up leading to him and his families cruel and violent demise, the mother is a dull cabbage like of a person who almost seems to serve no purpose, and the kids are a bunch of snotty spoiled brats who don’t seem to respect anyone. The little bit of good that we do see is at the grandmothers final moments when she puts her hand on The Misfits shoulder she sees The Misfit a regular person maybe even like a son of hers . This gesture is big because we as the readers see even the most selfish shallow women having compassion for the man. That was about to take her life, for the first time the old woman realizes that she isn’t above anything and this was her fate.
On the surface of “A Goodman Is Hard to Find” by Flannery O’ Connor, we see the family who goes on a road trip and they end up being murdered. They are perceived to be a normal family but they have their flaws. Mainly the grandmother who is stuck on her old ways and mindset. Underneath the surface the grandmother is racist and she thinks her way is the only way, which leads to their demise. The misfit also was good at one point, no one is born evil. He’s aware of his own evil and the evil of others but he hasn’t seen a light in his life so he has nowhere to look forward to.
Manuel, please make sure your posts meet the length requirement.
On the surface, the story “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” the story is centered on this white family in the south who seems very odd. The children are very disrespectful, the wife is very quiet and the husband Bailey is very impatient when it comes to dealing with his children to get them to calm down. I noticed that the grandma takes advantage of the personalities of the family to fulfill her needs and wants as the trip takes place. The grandmother has a very selfish and childlike personality because she pushes her own beliefs and opinion but does don’t make the effort to see the other point of view of the family. For example, when her son Bailey wanted to keep driving she lies to get her selfish way not considering the reasons why the family cannot afford to stop their trip in the first place. In the interior, the story shows the consequences of our own selfish desires. This is shown when she identified the misfit and felt as if she was untouchable because she felt as if being a lady granted her the power to change the situation. Another way this is shown is when she begs for her own life “Why you’re one of my babies. You’re one of my own children!” and tries to save herself by taking advantage as she makes the Misfit believe that by praying and saving her would he make a good person. The grandma believed that because she was a lady she was able to convince the other person into making the right choice for her.
On the surface of “A Good Man is Hard to Find” written by Flannery O’Connor we’re met with a cast of very at first glance miserable people who all happen to be a family. The story takes us on their trip to Florida and eventual murder after an unfortunate crash and encounter with the convict “The Misfit”. While on the inside we’re met with an analysis of the duality of man, that being “what is good and evil”. Each character in the story having a deeper purpose outside of being just a “character”. The grandmother who’s portrayed as the story’s protagonist is shown to be a blatantly selfish and hypocritical woman overall believing herself to be superior to those around her. While the Story’s antagonist The Misfit is portrayed to be quite cruel and deadpan. Delving deeper inside the story reveals that both the protagonist and antagonist both are aligned with the classic “good and bad” trope. “Good” is the grandmother who believes herself to be a truly good person due to her religion and faith while in reality being a hypocritical person. Then the Misfit who clearly is a terrible person being a serial murderer exists as the grandmother’s reality check showing her in her final moments that she truly wasn’t the good person she thought she was.
In its interior the story, “A Good Man Is Hard to Find,” is very much like a Greek tragedy in that it continuously expands in our minds after reading and we can realize new and meaningful points the more we analyze each character. I feel like this story at its core was designed to hold a mirror up to its reader’s faces and ask the question “What does it mean to be good?” This is a question we are often given the answer to before we can truly understand what it means. In the story religion is used to bestow goodness. During the conversation between the misfit and the grandmother she tries to use religion to manipulate the man and to non-verbally communicate her goodness, but the misfit places himself in the position of judge and jury for his victims and is indifferent about her attempts. In her last moments, the grandmother has an awakening where she sees the man as her own children and reaches out for him and touches him on the shoulder. I think both the grandmother and the misfit recognize moment of sincerity, but he ends up shooting her anyway. His reasoning is illuminated in his statement that, “She would of been a good woman…if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life.” His last statement I feel is the core of the story because it shows the hypocrisy of our true natures.
Antonia, I totally agree with your analysis of the story. The Misfit represents the consequences of our choices. You cannot always have a gun to your head to make the right choice. The true colors of the grandmother come out when she is begging for her life. The role of the Misfit, very much in line with Catholic justice, is giving the grandmother what she deserves. Again, this carries heavy themes of Catholic judgment.
In the story “A Goodman Is Hard to Find” by Flannery O’Connor, there are parts that can relate to some people’s negative thinking, like how if someone assumes the worse then the worse is bound to happen. There are also parts of stories like “A Goodman Is Hard to Find” that suggests that there are those who have no fear of danger but then are shown that very lack of fear is how and why their lives got in danger in the first play. However, what I feel the story is about in its “interior” is something that goes deeper than that, which is that your choice can have consequences because of how the characters chose to got Florida even though they knew that there was news about a killer on the lose there.
In “A Good Man is Hard to Find”, O’Connor wants us to know what happens so we can anticipate the Misfit doing evil. This is obviously a setup. As the story progresses and the events that transpire after the car wreck, we learn that the evilest of acts come from the family. I find that evil on the surface, while bad, is a lesser evil than the one that is an underlying current and broods beneath the surface. The “interior” of this family is so disgusting and repulsive that by the end of the story the Misfit, in my opinion, plays much more the role of Karma. It reminds me of the movie “No Country for Old Men”, where the main protagonist of the story is essentially the Misfit. Going around dishing out his version of justice to who he deems deserves it. In that movie we realize in the end, the sheriff chasing him becomes the ultimate villain much like the grandmother does due to their own selfish choices. Now thinking about it, that movie must have much inspiration from this story by O’Connor.
I think there was so much contrast between the grandmother and the misfit as characters in the story which brought to focus so much of their traits, such as the grandmother being a selfish, shallow/superficial, hypocritical, ignorant, manipulative; while on the other hand, the misfit was more self-aware, philosophical. The misfit had a binary worldview (black-and-white) in which he saw things for what they were. The grandmother was warped in her own old-fashioned mentality. When the two were having the dialogue, somehow both were affected by the other, for example in the instances when the grandmother was sympathetic toward the misfit when she reached out for him, and the misfit must’ve felt there was redemption for the grandmother who finally showed some authentic feelings for another in the end. The story showed the different perceptions of what “good” means and represents from these two characters who were both bad in their own ways.
Migena, your observations are very good, but have you addressed the question about the interior and exterior of the story?
The story ” A Good Man is Hard to Find is about a family who goes on a trip and see people’s true human nature and morality. The story shows humans are driven by self interests. The grandmother in the beginning can be seen as a good and caring person based on how she speaks on news about a misfit.But later on in the story her real character is exposed,during the end the family goes through a real situation of danger that shows how selfish and dishonest the grandmother was. Her main concern was saving herself while her own family were being shot. As you can see the grandmother was a hypocrite and in my experience my grandmother would’ve tried to give her life for mine or even do something to prevent it because even when I was a young boy my grandma would try to keep me out of trouble and that’s true loyalty. But the grandmother in this story didn’t even attempt saving her grandchildren.
Hey Juan, I agree the grandmother showed no interest in her grandchildren when they were being taken away. She kept trying to save her own life by gaining the misfit’s trust, but as we know it didn’t work out for her. Knowing that children are the most fragile, anyone would show concern and try to protect their own children from any kind of danger. The grandmother in the story was just fixated on herself when she was the one that cause the whole car crash to happen.
I agree with you, she showed no interest on her grandchildren but she was still in shocked that her son just died. The children were disrespectful and rude to her in the whole story, the whole family was. They didn’t care about the grandma, I felt like they hated her.
Aylin, please be sure to address comments to others by name. Also, make sure your posts meet the length requirements so you can receive full credit.
On the surface the story “A Goodman Is Hard to Find” by Flannery O’Connor shows a family on a road trip with an unfortunate ending, where they all get murdered by the misfit. If we look a bit deeper we can see that it’s about how people are not willing to be challenged in their beliefs. When we see the family we can already tell the grandma has very strong beliefs mentioning multiple times that people and things were nicer in the past. When their car crashes and she is confronted by the misfits she tries to reason with him. The grandma says he’s a nice man and tries to convince him that he is. The misfit knows what he is and challenges the grandma saying he had parents with golden hearts and was raised fairly well but he was just different, he is not a nice man. The grandma starts telling him to pray and repeats that he is a nice man not caring for her rest of her family at this point, but then man has already challenged her beliefs and all she can do is repeat what she believes even if it’s wrong.
“A good man is hard to find” by O’Connor, has to different meaning in the surface and interior. In the surface the story is simple, they were going on a trip to Florida and they died while in route. The grandmother made the kids excited about a house that had a secret room where they hide the gold. As they were going, they got into an accident and the misfit (the fugitive who they were talking about early) appears and kills them. In the interior, the grandmother was suffering because she was afraid of dying because she was sick. She wanted her last moment to do whatever she wanted to do, enjoy her life while she could. But her son and his family treated her like she was just an old annoying lady. Bailey was an angry man, who wanted things to be done in his way. The kids were disrespectful, and their grandmother always stated that back them kids weren’t like that. Also, she wasn’t aware that her comments or the way she spoke where racists and old-fashioned.
Reading between the lines of the story, “A Goodman is Hard to Find” by Flannery O’Connor is about living by moral codes that affect everything you do such as decisions, actions etc. This does not mean that you are good. Take for example, the grandmother has built her moral code on traits that she believes make people “good”. The grandmother proves she is insubstantial and inconsistent while she continues to deceive her family and lacks rudimentary awareness of everything around her. When she finds herself in a crisis, she heedlessly only thinks about herself and not her family while still thinking she is a good person. Everyone has their own definition of what good means and even though this is a fiction short story I think the author points out this kind of behavior along with the people, to show us this happens in the real world. To challenge us to see what type of person we are, what morals we set for ourselves and how we act upon them.
Hi Heaven, I definitely agree with you. I think that’s one big theme underneath the story is that morality isn’t something that we can measure and define, and that’s revealed through the hypocrisy of the grandmother. Your point is pretty relevant to the article we read where some teachers would call the grandmother evil, yet the point of the story is that morality isn’t something we can determine on a societal level. I also found your perspective very interesting about what you believe the author intended through this story, to get us to challenge our own morals.
Hey Heaven, I really enjoyed your analysis of the grandmother. Your analysis on her really displays a lot of knowledge on the character, which was what helped your determine who she really was on the inside. Ultimately, I agree with you on the relation this serves with the interior purpose. Sometimes coming to realization of who we are and accepting change if needed is the key to living.
This short story “A Good Man Is Hard To Find” tells about a family who went on vacation and made the wrong choice and then encountered a fugitive murderer who was eventually killed. In the story, the grandmother is a person who pays attention to appearance and considers herself a good person, she manipulated and deceived her family in order to achieve her own goals, for which she did not feel any guilt or apology. On the contrary, The Misfit knows very clearly that they are a bad person, and they fulfill their selfish desires by constantly killing people. This story describes two similar but not identical behaviors. Grandmothers and The Misfit have many things in common, they are both selfish and individualistic people, they will use all means to achieve their goals. The difference is that grandmother is a bad person who has packaged herself into a good person, rationalizing all her actions. The Misfit is bad guys who don’t need any disguise, so they will appear more free.
Si Hang, these are very good observations about the story, but have you answered the question about the interior and exterior of the story?
On the surface, the article is about a family of six who are killed when they meet a gang of notorious thugs on their trip. But from the interior, the article is an attempt to define goodness and hypocrisy. In the article, the grandmother is a selfish and mean person. She thinks she is a person from a modern civilized society. She never realizes the absurdity of life, but is complacent. Her blind confidence in her family and her views on society led to her death. Her communication with her family members was superficial, not very sincere, artificial. She also shows no sympathy for black men. She changed from a weak religious ideology to a devout Christian believer, which included her behavior motivation. In the face of gangsters, in order to make herself feel relieved, she adopted the ceremony of enlightenment, hoping to influence the gangsters. She seeks redemption by transforming herself. But she was killed in the end, all because of her hypocrisy.
The story of “A good Man is Hard to Find” is narrated in a way it’s level of suspense can be focused on it’s interior and not the surface. This meant that the author told the story directly how it happened and left no scene out to be figured by its audience. This style of writing left us to only decipher its hidden meaning or “it’s interior” significance. Based on what I’ve read I believe that interior meaning to the story denotes more of who the Grandma and Misfits were as characters. From what I understood, the Grandma was really selfish and greedy yet she showed no signs of this when she was left to deal with the Misfit alone. Overall, the author’s interior motive was to demonstrate that both the Grandmother who is awfully rude and self-center and the Misfit who killed his father can receive forgiveness from God. We can identify this as the interior motive by noting the role religion plays on the story as well as the authors life.
What makes someone a good person? In “A Good Man is Hard to Find”, we read about the brutal murder of a family by an escaped convict called The Misfit. In its interior, this story is mostly about how we determine morality. Throughout the story we see the grandmother’s horrible, racist behavior contrasted with multiple references to what she deems “good people”. She leads the family down a dirt road, gets them into an accident, and recognizes The Misfit, which ultimately causes him to murder them. It would be easy to chalk this up to her horrible behavior causing her and her families demise in some form of cosmic justice, with a cliché moral such as, “Don’t be racist!” or “Don’t be selfish!”. O’Connor avoids this through the dialogue of The Misfit, portraying morality as both relative and determined by authority. The point of The Misfit isn’t that he is evil, but that he is mistreated by a system responsible for upholding moral behavior. The Misfit believes that no matter what crime you do, sooner or later you will be punished, and because of this he sees no point in living according to the moral standards set for him. In his reference to Jesus, he admits that if Jesus were real and thus that moral behavior would result in some type of reward, “then it’s nothing for you to do but thow away everything and follow Him, and if He didn’t, then it’s nothing for you to do but enjoy the few minutes you got left the best way you can – by killing somebody or burning his house down or doing some other meanness to him.” We can see that The Misfit’s only investment in moral behavior is what will benefit him. This is caused by his mistreatment by prison system – the moral authority. Regardless of whether or not he committed a crime, his punishment revealed to him that morality has no meaning other than what the moral authority gives it. When he himself becomes the man with the gun, he assumes the position of the moral authority, and dishes out justice the only we he sees fit. We can see this in his last line after he kills the grandmother, “She would have been a good woman, […] if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life.” In assuming the position of power, he simultaneously becomes responsible for enforcing morality, hence the reference to her as a “good woman” while he has a gun pointed to her head.
By listening to a story we can all tell what to expect next by paying attention to the plot as it unravels. However with this story on the surface it is about a family who seems like a regular, normal family but as the story unfolds and each character personality is revealed it can be seen that they are all unaware of their negative traits. For example, the grandmother seemed to appear very refined and superior but she was also unaware of her racism. John Wesley and his little sister were rude, disrespectful and appeared to be “stocky”. Bailey and the mother were more bland individuals, who were very quiet and never said much. The Misfit on the other hand, was said to be a bad guy who had escaped from prison but instead he appeared to be nice man who came from a respectable family and while he admitted he was a criminal he felt as though he was undeserving of his punishment. The interior of the story shifts the reader’s perspective and shows them that how people are usually hypocrites and those who usually claim that they are “good” individuals are often the most flawed while those who perceive themselves as “bad” or “undeserving” usually have a hidden reason as to why they choose to be seen this way. I believe this story tries to show us that we must never judge someone by their appearance and before we judge someone we must take a look at ourselves before we make a judgement about someone else.
The story “A Good Man Is Hard To Find” it is about a family that is murdered in Florida but it’s subliminal message is the transformative power of human grace and compassion.These things don’t correlate or correspond with one another as it is a suspense story about a family being murdered doesn’t relate to the human compassion but that’s only to the naked eye.This story also falls under the don’t judge a book by its cover even if there is no cover which there is with a person holding a knife on the cover.Yes the story was eventful and suspense packed but it did have very selective word choice and made the readers imagine and picture what it was like.That’s why you need to have a active imagination to be a great reader so you can picture what the author is trying to get you to invision.
For readers, this story from the beginning is about a family that is going to have a fun trip, they show a family like all with problems and disagreements. As the story unfolds, certain racist thoughts are noticed in the family, especially in the grandmother who wanted everyone to think like her and her perfect weapon for this was religion. That is why when they find the Misfit and the other two people who murdered people, a debate is put on who is a good person and who deserves to live, the grandmother from the beginning tries to persuade them that she is the one who deserves to live and does so through religion but on the other hand, the Misfit prefers to be alone, to be judged and to act alone, because of everything he has lived through. In this story you see the hypocrisy and perhaps this is the inside of the story as ¨A good man is hard to find¨ refers to the fact that although we see families or people on the outside, we never see what they really are inside and for On the contrary, with the Misfit, he shows himself as a person with a good heart but who, because of his actions and what he has had to live himself, is not considered bad and accepts his destiny.