Kethia Joseph 3/7/2011 “A Good Man is Hard to Find” by FLANNERY O’CONNOR A family of six is planning a vacation trip to Florida. The family consists of the grandmother, the father, the mother and three children. The grandmother tried to convince her son to go to Tennessee instead of Florida. She is concerned about a criminal on the loose who is also going to Florida. Nobody listens to her and the trip will end up in tragedy.
Irony within “A Good Man Is Hard To Find” In the story “A Good Man Is Hard To Find,” Flannery O’Connor creates a sequence of events that lead to a miserable and deathly vacation for a family of six. The family consisting of a grandma, her son, his wife and three children plan a road trip to Florida. Everyone except the grandma is fond of the vacation site, simply because she would rather go to East Tennessee. She tries to justify her thoughts be making a remark about how there is a dangerous criminal on the loose and headed straight for Florida. When this does not work, the grandma then quotes, “the children have been to Florida before, you all ought to take them somewhere else for a change so they would see different parts of the world and be broad” (3).
Anne's new owner, Jacob Bishopp was a respectable plantation owner of Northampton County, who required her services from William Kendall. During one of Bishopp's business affairs, Anne reunites with John Kendall, and they “rekindled their romance.” During a council meeting at the Webbs Inn, Anne and John had sex and conceived twins. After a short time of her pregnancy, Bishopp sold her indenture to Colonel William Waters. Chapter three is about William Waters was a sheriff of the peace, and also a plantation owner himself. Having discovered Anne's condition, he couldn't help but feel disturbed by this because of the fact that she is useless to him.
When Charlie asks what a half-caste is, Wes gives him books. Many about times of slavery in America. He is trying to teach Charlie tolerance in a town that is narrow-minded. As a result of these familial relationships, Charlie thinks that his parents would assume he’d been kidnapped when he had in reality snuck out with Jasper Jones because this is “probably (his) only ever transgression”. ( Pg 10) Jasper Jones does not have the protection Charlie has been afforded.
In Document D, Richard Frethorne wrote a letter to his parents about his voyage to Virginia and how life is there. Frethorne agrees with Percy. The diseases that went around the ships and were everywhere in this “paradise” made it very not worthy of going to. It is even said by Frethorne that “People cry out day and night—Oh! That they were in England…” It cannot be taken lightly that people wish heavily to return to the very place they fled in the first place.
“A work of literature, he believes, is the external expression of the author’s unconscious mind. Accordingly, literary works must then be treated like a dream, applying psychoanalytic techniques to texts to uncover the author’s hidden motivations, repressed desires, and wishes” (Bressler 130). In the first paragraph of the story the grandmother is trying to persuade her son to not travel to Florida. She feels like she knows better than her son. Her grandchildren had been to Florida before, and she wishes her son would take a vacation to another destination.
Symbolism in Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man is Hard to Find” In a superficial view, Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man is Hard to Find” is no more than a simple story of a family travelling to Florida for the vacation and facing their last moment after confronting the escaped criminal, Misfit. However, it contains numerous foreshadows that allude to the ending of the story and O’Connor’s tremendous use of symbolism implicated in the conversations between characters at various parts of the story. It is very surprising how the author uses this symbolism and allusive descriptions to teach us a veiled lesson. One important thing needed to catch the symbolism of this story is the understanding of characters. Grandmother, the leading character of the story, is a lady who has a South-heritage deep in her heart and admires the glorious time-honored tradition of South.
Finding one’s moment of grace is challenging because it requires someone to be faced with their true identity and the choice to change who they are. After the person achieves their moment of grace, it transforms them into a new person by incorporating the aspects of inner peace and happiness. In, “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” an ordinary Georgia family began their summer vacation road trip to Florida. Half way through the trip, the grandmother makes up a story about an old plantation with a secret panel, to excite the children and cause them to beg the parents to visit it. After a trip down a dirt road, the grandmother suddenly realizes the old plantation isn’t in Georgia, but in Tennessee.
James Baldwin's essay, “My Dungeon Shook: Letter to My Nephew on the One Hundredth Anniversary of the Emancipation,” shows how African Americans don’t receive their piece of the American dream. Baldwin writes this letter as an essay to his nephew to help guide him through his life. The best advice he gives is meant to bolster his nephew in a racist society, “I tell you this because I love you, and please don’t you ever forget it” (1). He tells him how his father was destroyed by whites calling him the N-word. He wants his nephew to let it go in one ear and out the other, and understand that what they say
For example, David Henry, the father of Phoebe would be considered the "memory keeper" since he kept his daughter's birth a secret from hid wife, Norah. This is a memory that David will have to live with for the rest of his life. Due to this secret, David struggles with his guilt, which affects his relationship with his wife and son, until his entire family descends into a mess of alcoholism, infidelity and divorce. The setting of this novel is in 1964 in the state of Kentucky. The setting of the story created a mood, along with determines the action of the story.