When reading the excerpt “On Her Own Work”, O’Connor brought up the idea of the Grandmother being viewed as a witch. I would’ve never thought about that, while this story has a lot to do with the concepts of good/evil and religion; I began to think about the idea of the supernatural. We have the Grandmother almost prophesizing her and her family’s destiny before the trip even begins. The Grandmother talks about how The Misfit escaped jail and how they would be better off going to Tennessee and then you have the kids making jokes about how they would react if they were faced with the bandit. While I am not a religious person I am spiritual, so having this comparison of the witch and destiny makes me more interested in the story; leaving it to only the view of religion makes me question God or Jesus. This makes me think about the Misfit’s mindset of a person who feels undeserving of his punishment, a man wronged by God and now being faced by a woman who still calls him a good man after killing her family. Had I not read the excerpt I would’ve never thought about the idea of destiny but rather coincidence.
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4 thoughts on “Discussion Board 9 Nada (Nan) Abushami”
Nan, you hit on something very important here in your comments about good and evil. I think that the title of the story is an absolute truth. It is hard to find truly good human beings. In O’Connor’s view, many people go through life like the members of the family in this story. They aren’t evil, and the Grandmother isn’t the devil; yet, they aren’t especially good either. They are kind of grey. The Misfit is dark, and he knows it—has devoted his life to meanness. O’Connor’s view is that good human beings have to be more than just not evil. They should strive to be as good as the Misfit is bad.
Hey Nan,
While reading this story the turn of events happened so fast that I had to go back and re-read it to process it. So like you, even after reading the story I had some questions on my mind. Additionally, i started paying closer attention to the misfits mindset seeing as its unusual to have such an intellectual conversation with a woman whose family you just killed. I agree that i would not have gotten the idea of destiny without the excerpt nor would i have understood why the author chose to include that specific conversation being had between the misfit and the grandmother. i really appreciate your thoughts on this story. Great work!
Hello Nan,
Your discussion did an excellent job of capturing the idea that view that was casted upon the Grandmother in ‘A Good Man Is Hard To Find”. I myself have never thought or considered about the idea of supernatural or destiny in regards to the grandmother but more so one of sheer chance or serendipity. Your view on this has encouraged me to look at her from another perspective and rethink the different themes of the story especially how the relate to both the grandmother and Misfits’ journeys.
Hey Nan I agree with you, I would’ve never thought to think about the grandmother as a witch either but as a person who was expecting and also in denial in a sense when it comes to death. She basically foresaw the faith of herself and her family somewhat like an intuition without knowing she was even doing it and then accepting her faith. Nevertheless, if you didn’t read the essay first would you have gotten the same aspect? Because I felt as tough if I didn’t have the essay to read prior to the story I would’ve viewed it as a coincidence like you mentioned.