Daniel Machover – Week 8 discussion

In the essay about suspense in her story “A Good Man Is Hard to Find,” O’Connor 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?”

I believe that the author, in saying that allowing the reader to know what’s going to happen in the story enables them to take the story from the surface to the interior is alluding to dramatic device in writing.

The use of this device, I believe, allows the reader to not just become consumed with the one element of suspense. Rather, the reader, in already knowing the outcome, can shift their focus to other themes the author is trying to convey in their work- such as family dynamics, the Grandmother’s manipulative behavior, and the Misfits perception of life.

The Grandmother, being the main character of the story, uses her words wisely in order to gain what she wants from others, acting as a puppeteer so to speak.  Her manipulative behavior ends up being her demise.  As the Misfit enters the story, it is difficult to get much of a read on him.  As the Grandmother tries to penetrate the emotional wall he puts up using statements about religious beliefs and questions about his past, ultimately trying to tie it into relating to him which gets her killed.  The Misfit saw past that.  The quote “Daddy was a card himself,” The Misfit said. “You couldn’t put anything over on him. He never got in trouble with the Authorities though. Just had the knack of handling them.” [103-106], foreshadows the fact that the grandmothers manipulative dialogue wouldn’t end in success.