The beginning of the story starts off with the Grandmother trying to persuade her family not to take the road trip to Florida. She brings up the release of the Misfit, a serial killer, saying "I couldn't answer to my conscience" if the family came across him as if she was referring to herself. From here, every decision or thought made by the Grandmother steers her wrong, as a consequence for ignoring her first instinct. The Grandmother is first in the car, ready to go. She dresses like a lady "just in case" something may happen to her.
Exposition: Character- (a) The Grandmother (Dynamic)- The Grandmother is a lady who lives with her only son Bailey and his family. In the story the Grandmother suggest that they should take the family vacation at Tennessee instead of Florida where it is rumored and escaped murderer is headed. On the way she suggest the family visit an old plantation house where it leads to her family being murdered. Before she is killed, the grandmother tries to reason with the Misfit but in the end gets him angry. She experiences grace right before the
Like in Away, Melanie escapes to the beach in the storm where she meets her true love, Jake. For Melanie coming back to Alabama was not to escape, it was to face her fears and her identity. Melanie also represents Coral, when takes control of the reality that her son had died and buried it in the past and go on with her life and focusing more on her
Everyone except the grandmother, a selfish religious old woman, agrees on Florida as their destination. She tries to persuade her family to abandon their original plans, saying that there is an escaped killer on the loose, foreshadowing events that lead to the family’s murder. The grandmother is central to the rest of the story’s plot involving an accident where the family’s car flips resulting in a confrontation with the escaped convict, The Misfit. The grandmother, pointing out The Misfit’s identity, essentially dooms herself and her entire family. As a last plea to The Misfit, the grandmother attempts to manipulate his evil motives with a transcendence of religion that fails and ultimately drives him to murder her.
Brayan Burgos Dr. Stryffeler English 102 2/23/13 Short Story Analysis A family is planning a vacation in Florida, but their grandmother points out that there is an escaped murderer loose there and she would not take her family to such a place. She wants to go to east Tennessee. The next morning they head out and she sneaks her cat with them. After driving for a while, the grandmother thinks she remembers a plantation she once visited in this area. She suggests they go and the more she talks about it the more she wants to go.
She is a lair, manipulated her family, hypocritical and judgmental. In the end, the story suggests she died with divine grace but who can know that for sure? Did the Grandmother want forgiveness for her sins? The story does not lead us in that direction. Up until the very end the Grandmother appears to be trying to save her life any way she can.
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.
I view the grandmother in this story as a southern “lady” with the best of intentions for her family; but, she is also self-righteous and self-serving. The first line of the story tells us the grandmother wants to go to Tennessee to visit friends. She then uses the news article about The Misfit as a reason to not to go to Florida and states that she could not answer to her conscience if she did. In addition, the grandmother knows her son Bailey does not like to travel with the cat, Pitty Sing. The grandmother proceeds to hide Pitty Sing in a basket and brings her along anyway.
Receiving 17 days of leave, Paul travels to his hometown, knowing he must go see Kemmerich’s mother, “I was beside him. He died at once” (180). Paul is deliberately telling Kemmerich’s mother a blatant lie. Kemmerich died in a gruesome manner after he had his leg amputated. Kemmerich’s mother is not convinced that Paul is telling the truth, saying, “I have felt how terribly he died.
Flannery O’Connor’s story is filled with foreshadowing and irony. Foreshadowing is used throughout the story. In the beginning of the story when the grandmother tells her son that they cannot go to the state of Florida because the Misfit is headed that way, the readers get an idea that the family will at some point meet with this man. Also when we see how the Grandmother is dressed for a long road trip, “Her collar and cuffs were white organdy trimmed with lace and at her neckline she had pinned a purple spray of cloth violets containing a sachet. In case of an accident, anyone seeing her dead on the highway would know at once that she was a lady (Inside Literature 1192),” we can predict that an accident will happen and perhaps even death.