The grandmother refers to the boy as a pickaninny and a nigger, two terms that are used to racially degrade African Americans, coloreds, or blacks. As the family passes a what seems to be familiar road the grandmother lies to her grandchildren, June Star and John Wesley, about a hidden passage in her old plantation home in Georgia. She lies to the children so they can convince their father to defer from the road and visit here old plantation home on a abandoned road. While traveling on the vacant road the grandmother remembers that the plantation home is in Tennessee, but is too ashamed to tell her family. After a car accident occurs the family crosses paths with The Misfit, who eventually kills the entire family.
After the grandma is unable to persuade the family not to go to Florida, they do so anyways. Still in fear of the misfit, the grandma says: “I wouldn’t take my children in any direction with a criminal like that a loose in it. I couldn’t answer to my conscience if I did” (2). Ironically, the family ends up meeting the Misfit later in the story because of the grandma’s lack of knowledge of directions to a house with a “secret panel.” The reader is able to identify from the beginning that the grandma is one to not stick by her word and also thinks of herself more highly than she really is. She portrays herself as a “lady;” however, she does not know the true definition of
O’Connor’s theology can be seen in the portrayal of the main characters, The Misfit and the grandmother, in “A Good Man Is Hard to Find”. In this story The Misfit, an escaped convict and murderer, represents the epitome of supreme evil. “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” is the story of a family’s twisted vacation that results in each one of the family members deaths. The story’s setting begins in Atlanta, Georgia with a family argument about where to go on vacation. Everyone except the grandmother, a selfish religious old woman, agrees on Florida as their destination.
The death of the family might be an expression of an underlying design. Although the children describe the car crash as an “ACCIDENT”, O’Connor represents the working of fate and bringing their family to their destiny. Throughout the story the Grandmother brought the Misfit to surface, even in the first paragraph "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. Just you read it. I wouldn't take my children in any direction with a criminal like that aloose in it.
In this short story I think that Flannery O’Conner is trying is trying to “convert” people who have not found Christ over to Christianity. I believe that O’Conner was a strong believer in Christianity. In this story she has a grandmother trying to convert a criminal that escaped from the Federal Penitentiary over to Christ before she is killed. In the short story a family of six was preparing for a trip to Florida when the grandmother finds an article about an escaped convict headed to Florida. The grandmother is persistent on not going to Florida as they have been there before states, “’The children have been to Florida before,’ the old lady said.
Her family on the other hand seemed a bit more laid back when it came too a religious point of view. In the beginning of the story the grandmother points out on her sons newspaper the article about the misfits who escaped from jail and how she would never head in the direction of where they could be near. The family begins their road trip down south to Florida in which the grandmother wasn’t too fond of. The grandmother lectures her two grandchildren several times during the car ride while the father and mother sat up front quietly. They stop to get food along the way ran by a man by the name of Red Sammy.
Andrew Riess Cousins ENGL 1102 28 September 2010 Violence- A Means to an End When most people encounter problems, deliberation is done in how to resolve the specific problem. It is generally a well thought out process where the pros and cons of each possible decision are weighed against each other. If executed correctly the process will generally result in the proper decisions being made. However, not everyone chooses to follow these guidelines to problem solving, and the people do not always come up with the best solution to the problem. Among these people is the Misfit from Flannery O' Connor's short story “A Good Man Is Hard to Find.” Instead of carefully weighing each possible outcome the Misfit uses violence to solve the majority of the problems he faces.
After a trip down a dirt road, the grandmother suddenly realizes the old plantation isn’t in Georgia, but in Tennessee. Too embarrassed to admit her mistake, she causes her cat (which she secretly concealed into the car in the beginning of the story) to jump on her son (Bailey), which then causes the car to crash into a ditch. An escaped convict, called
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.
The protagonist of The Outsider, Meursault, is estranged because he does not fit into the social norm. At the news of his mother’s demise, Meursault does not feel the agony that normal people do when hearing their parents’ deaths. His lack of emotion is further evinced by his sending his mother to the Senior’s House. In Meursault’s psyche, he feels that his mother is a burden to him. He thinks that the Senior House is a better choice for the both of them as his mother would be happier there.