In “A Good Man Is Hard To Find”, the interior is about morality and hypocrisy. Focusing on the grandma, she claims she’s a good person and sympathizes with what goes on in the world but yet she doesn’t do anything good. She thinks her moral qualities are self-evident and doesn’t even ask herself if what she is doing is right or reckless. Not only rationalizing bad behavior, she has no moral integrity. When the criminal gets introduced, shows integrity even though he can’t remember his crime, actually admits to his moral standing and has honesty. Although he is a murderer which is immoral, he is honest which separates him with the grandmother. When the criminal meets the grandmother, she becomes affectionate and comforts him, something she wouldn’t do for her son. This brings out another side in grandma instead of being judgemental and manipulative to the family. Ultimately as grandma says, “it’s a fallen world” but she’s wrong thinking she’s not part of it. With the Misfit, at least he’s honest and knows he’s not a good person, it doesn’t erase the burden on him but it separates him and the grandma in honesty.
Daily Archives: October 15, 2022
I enjoy this story the most compared to the other reads. I would say that the story’s “interior” is mostly a commentary on how some people practice virtue signaling directly or indirectly. The grandmother acts very sanctimonious throughout the text and believes that a person’s morality is solely determined by some superficial observation. The irony is that the misfit is the most honest and believable character because he sees himself for who and what he really is. The line where he says “Nome, I ain’t a good man,” The Misfit said after a second as if he had considered her statement carefully, “but I ain’t the worst in the world neither”. is very interesting because I understand it both literal and subliminal. I interpreted it as he was calling out the grandmother’s hypocrisy, piousness and naivete. Which also brings me to the understanding that perhaps maybe all of her observations could come from a place of guilt in her younger days. Maybe she wasn’t all that “good” herself and thus projects herself onto people. Perhaps she believes that by seeing people’s goodness regardless of who or what they are-then maybe people can see her for how she wants to be seen.
I feel Like that the interior of “A good man is hard to find” is one that focuses on the true character of a person. The Grandmother who refers to herself constantly as a “lady” (she even dresses in a manner that in the event that there is an accident those who come upon her will know by her dress that she was a lady) is anything but, she’s shallow, and judgmental. She looks down on her family and others, seeing herself as better, she also prideful (even after realizing that she had the address wrong she allowed the family to continue (thus sealing their fate). The “Misfit” while appearing (by his way of speaking respectfully showing some sort of warmth towards the mother when asking if she’d like to join Bailey. and his embarrassment of being without a shirt in the presence of women) comes off as a southern gentleman is in reality a murderous monster who is unfeeling.
