In “A Good Man is Hard to Find” by Flannery O’Conner we are given a Southern murder story of a family on a road trip to Florida. In this story, the grandmother is the protagonist and her character is built on pride. The grandmother prides herself in her impression on others as well as taking care of her family. She tries to lead by example by maintaining her neat appearance and teaching her grandchildren manners while also reiterating her superiority to others.
Through the change of setting and building on the grandmothers paranoia of getting caught up by The Misfit during their road trip, O’Conner forebodes the fact that the family was going to get murdered eventually. I think this story reveals the interior lesson that appearance does not equate to one’s morality. For example, throughout the story, the grandmother switched from teaching her grandchildren manners and looking down on their behavior, to making racist remarks about Black people. The author builds on this irony in the conversation between the grandmother and Red Sam when he says, “A good man is hard to find” (O’Conner paragraph 42). He said this because he was cheated by guys that looked respectable and even though the grandmother has a prejudiced character, one would never know because she cleans up her appearance before the road trip just in case, “anyone seeing her dead on the highway would know at once that she was a lady” (O’Conner paragraph 12). This highlights how one’s appearance does not reflect their morality because you can look good and have an ugly personality. This is later addressed when the grandmother faces The Misfit and the grandmother realizes his “strong white teeth” (O’Conner paragraph 88). Even in a life threatening situation, the grandmother considers the “nice” appearance of The Misfit versus the reality of the situation and his capabilities. The Misfit talks about punishment and how it is unfair for one person to get punished but others do not. I took this as the grandmothers meeting with death and repenting for her mistakes and receiving her form of punishment because it was her pride and paranoia that got the family killed. Had she allowed Bailey to continue driving, they would have survived and completed their road trip.
3 thoughts on “Discussion Bard 8 Kiara Gonzalez”
Kiara, this is an interesting response to the prompt. And yes, the demonstration of hypocrisy and superficiality is definitely an element in the interior of the story. These elements actually help propel the plot, which is the exterior of the story. The ignorance of the Grandmother is made manifest by her assumption that she is a good woman because she instructs the children about manners and loyalty while at the same time telling them, for instance, that Black children do not own pants or agreeing with Red Sam’s narrow-minded view of the world. Both she and Red Sam think they are good people, shirking all responsibility for their small, mean beliefs. I think it’s clear that there is no truly “good” character in the story.
Kiara, I feel as if your analysis of Flannery O’Conner’s “A Good Man is Hard to Find” was very insightful. You made an excellent point about how the narrative illustrates the internal lesson that one’s morality is not determined by appearance. And I also agree that the grandmother’s pride and anxiety were responsible for the family’s death. But overall this was a interesting story which may cause many different opinions. But I feel very similar to what you wrot.
Thank you, for the valuable comment about this exiting story. I have really enjoyed your analysis of grandmother, and the issue about the contradictory between outer and inner. And it is very nice that you’ve noticed all these details about grandmother, that one more time proves that she is a superficial person. I think that the rest member of the family are also not very positive characters, but the most prominent is a granny of course.