A Good Man Is Hard to Find

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The Effective Use of Tone in Flannery O'Connor's A Good Man is Hard to Find The Effective Use of Tone in Flannery O'Connor's A Good Man is Hard to Find Flannery O'Connor's short story, "A Good Man is Hard to Find," begins with a Southern family preparing to go on what seems to be a typical vacation. The story is humorous at first because the reader is unaware of how the story will end. The tone changes dramatically from amusing to frightening and plays an important part in making the story effective. The narrator starts the story giving background information about the grandmother and her son, Bailey. The narrator explains that the "grandmother didn't want to go to Florida" (320). Although a major conflict could result from her dislike of the family's choice of vacation spots, it does not. When the grandmother first speaks she asks Bailey to read a newspaper article that she has found. She attempts to change his mind about not going to Florida, by saying, "Here this fellow that calls himself The Misfit is aloose from the Federal Pen and headed toward Florida and you read here what it says he did to these people..." (320). Bailey does not make eye contact with her. She then goes to the children's mother, who does not seem to care or listen. The narrator describes the mother as "a young woman in slacks, whose face was as broad and innocent as a cabbage and was tied around with a green headkerchief that had two points on the top like a rabbit's ears" (320). This is when the humor begins. John Wesley, Bailey's son, asks the grandmother, "If you don't want to go to Florida, why dontcha stay at home?" (320). June Star replies that "She wouldn't stay home to be queen for a day," and goes on to say, "She wouldn't stay at home for a million bucks. Afraid she'd miss something. She has to go everywhere we go" (320). Even though these statements from the children
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