Through the development of the story, readers may draw the conclusion that there is no straightforward answer to what is good and evil in the world. The grandmother is a pretentious character who considers herself as a moral lady with a faithful belief in Christianity, However, she only cares about herself and pretends to be considerate of others. In the beginning of the story, she uses the report about the Misfit to try to convince her family not to go to Florida for vacation. She tells Bailey, her son, “ I wouldn’t take my children in any direction with a criminal like that aloose in it. I couldn’t answer to my conscience if I did”(O’Connor, 9).
Without this knowledge, Jane Doe gave what she believed was her informed consent for the surgery, which consequently violated her right to self-determination and did her extreme harm rather than good. She never had the chance to explore other options, because she was misinformed about her donor from the start. In addition to hiding risks from the patient, physicians gave her little alternative to her procedure. She knew she did not want a high risk donor, in fact she had “previously rejected another donor “because of his lifestyle”’(Vaughn 152). Clearly Jane Doe was exercising her autonomous right to decline this kidney, as she thought accepting that kidney may cause her more harm than good.
In her book “The Case for God” she writes that religion requires leaps of faith and should accept that there is no scientific proof for the existence of God. For this reason, Karen Armstrong agrees with this claim. Some philosophers, such as Keith Ward, say that religion is non-cognitive and that religion focuses on the way the believer lives their life rather than what you believe. This view on religion does not seem compatible with Aquinas’ Cosmological Argument because Aquinas is trying to find reason behind believing in God whereas Ward would say it doesn’t matter why or how there is a God. Ward believes religion to be existential.
A Good Man Is Hard To Find When Misfit says: “She would have been a good woman if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life" he means that it took the grandmother’s very life being threatened for her to have an epiphany and actually embrace her religion’s message of the gospel that God’s grace was for everyone—including Misfit that she had merely claimed to believe up until the very end. In that moment just before her death, she recognizes him as her child and therefore a child of God. She had been a hypocrite up until that point and all of her pleadings for him to pray were for the sake of her own welfare and not concern for his soul. She was trying to manipulate him. She barely even reacted to the obvious murder
My mother told them “no because long as it not stopping me from seeing she is not going to let anybody operate on it”. Well I got very upset with my mother about this because I was tied of the kids teasing me. My mother told me to be patient she has turn it over to God and he will take care of it. Well my mother is a very Christian type person. So when she pray about something she no longer worry about it.
Knowing O’Connor’s religious background will help in deconstructing the two main characters in “A Good Man Is Hard to Find”. Flannery O’Connor was a Christian. This is not an unbelievable thought since she grew up in the southern Bible Belt, but what can be thought of as unbelievable to some is that O’Connor was a Christian fiction writer and reading her work numerous times one would have no clue about this. She did not write in a way that was “holier than thou”, she wrote in the way of the world, through the eyes of the common man. O’Connor’s thought was that a man or woman did not want to have a story written that gave everything away, she wrote in the same way that she thought about being a good Christian, which was to make the reader
Somehow, I’m breaking her trust, but at least I’m not doing anything that can bring shame for my family or offend my parents. I just want to spend a little bit more time with my friends. It’s just a small piece of lie. I never lie to her in serious cases. Moreover, I never continue to lie for getting late.
Weil says that when you perform an action you should not do it seeking to be crowned hero but because heroism can be performed without desiring to prove to anyone that you have done something good for someone else without them asking. The difference between Weil’s view and the grandmothers actions is that the grandmother is looking for the approval of other’s whereas Weil isn’t interested in any earthly gift or reward. However, Weil receives something much greater and more powerful by acting upon the will of God. He grants us the gift of eternal salvation; a gift given to us by God when we obey him. Never considering God before in her life, the grandmother turns to God in prayer as
There is an internal conflict, as "the old lady," the grandmother, who lives with her married son, his wife and their three children. The theme is that age doesn't determine wisdom and persistence does not always get you what you want. The irony of the story is the outcome, and irony courses through the events and characters, especially with the grandmother and her granddaughter, June Star. Grandmother had to go everywhere the family went and wouldn't stay home to be queen for a day or for a million dollars, which implies she wasn't wanted but she couldn't be gotten rid of. Grandmother is the first one in the car, as not to be left behind.
I was confused about how the story ended, when the Misfit says that “[The grandmother] would have been a good person had there been someone there to shoot her every minute of her life”. I didn’t really understand what that meant until we talked about it amongst ourselves. The conclusion we reached was, to me, unbelievably profound. Good people are not those who are morally superior, or those who play the Good Samaritan. Rather, they are those who are consistently true to themselves.