One of the most surprising elements of Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” is the sudden and brutal violence that occurs towards the end of the story. After a series of misadventures and mistakes, the family finds themselves stranded on a remote road where they encounter a group of escaped convicts led by a man known as The Misfit. Despite the grandmother’s attempts to appeal to his better nature and convince him to spare their lives, The Misfit orders his men to kill the entire family. What intrigued me was the elements of Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” is the complex and flawed characters that populate the story. From the self-centered and manipulative grandmother to the morally ambiguous and enigmatic Misfit, each character is carefully crafted to challenge the reader’s assumptions and expectations. One of the puzzling elements of Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” is the ending of the story and the meaning behind it. After the family is brutally murdered by The Misfit and his gang, the story ends with The Misfit making a cryptic statement about the grandmother: “She would have been a good woman, if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life.” This statement is puzzling because it raises a number of questions about The Misfit’s motives and the nature of grace and redemption.
Daily Archives: March 21, 2023
I believe the interior of this story is to show transformation between two characters and how compassion and grace can come into play. The grandmother is a selfish, hypocritical woman who is unaware of her behavior, she is flawed just like everyone else. The misfit is a criminal who shows very little emotion, yet he is an experienced man who is aware of his behavior and what is right or wrong. He knows the power of Jesus that the grandmother makes aware to him constantly, however he doesn’t have much belief, he doesn’t need nor want the help of Jesus. Both characters show a potential for receiving grace. Both characters show how you can change in a spec of a moment and how that affects a person differently. The misfit became egotistic as the grandmother had the realization of acceptance and seeing the good in someone and relating that to your own life, a soft moment. The interior can also be about how selfishness and fate can come into play.
