The Grandmother in “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” In Flanner O’Conner’s “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” the character named grandmother only sees herself to be a “Lady” but within the story other forms are shown otherwise. Being manipulative to get what she wants, confusion with her faith, and senile, the grandmother exhibits throughout the passage leading to the bad consequences. Facing the facts, the grandmother is a manipulator. Her style is always more subtle, she never does this directly. She doesn’t want to go to Florida, but to Tennessee instead, and to get her way she tries to scare Bailey and puts him on a guilt trip with reports of a criminal on the loose.
Because their relationship is an affair, they cannot see each other in the way they want to very often and especially not while other people are around. They are not married to each other which make their relationship very wrong in that community and time- more so wrong than it would be now. John Procter understands that their secret must be kept, but finished, but Abigail doesn’t care that they were caught once and could be caught again. She just wants their relationship back and says, “Oh, I marvel, how such a strong man may let such a sickly wife be-” (miller 22) Abigail then comes to claim that Elizabeth, john’s wife, is “Blackening me (her) name in the village!” She is telling lies about me (her)!” (Miller 22) but he just gets angry at himself because it’s true, and threatens to whip her for talking about his wife that
There are several examples of her deceitful and untrustworthy actions. In the beginning of the story, “The grandmother didn’t want to go to Florida” (O’ Connor 9), so she made up false excuses to try to persuade her family to take her to Tennessee. On the way to Florida, she lied to the children about the secret panel by telling them, “‘There was a secret panel in this house not telling the truth but wishing that she were” (O’ Connor 16,17) so she can get what she wants and visit the old plantation. She also chooses not to reveal that she made a mistake about the location of the house. In addition, the grandmother talks about Jesus with The Misfit when she hopes that it might help save her life.
Title effectiveness 1. Unstable Situation: The conflict in this story is the grandmother being unloving and manipulative. She always thinks she’s always right and never wrong. Some examples from the story are as fallow: “The grandmother didn’t want to go to Florida. She wanted to visit some of her connections in east Tennessee and she was seizing at every chance to change Baily’s mind” (pg.
Bella’s guilt caused by her mother’s fear of loneliness has left her short of any male relations. She cannot escape the wrath of her mother, and continually surrenders to her mother's will. Also, Bella has felt she cannot start her own relationship because her mother, in an effort to protect her living children, she has trained them not to feel by hardening them with punishments such as locking them in a closet or beating them with her cane” (Bloom, Harold. “List of characters in Lost in Yonkers. p67-68).
With whom do you have more sympathy with, Arthur Kipps or Jennet Humfrye? In the Woman in Black, I sympathize with both Arthur Kipps and Jennet Humfrye, however not The Woman in Black. We have sympathy with Arthur Kipps, as he has not done anything to deserve the loss of his son, and Jennet Humfrye due to her son being taken away from her. Arthur Kipps has not had anything to do with Jennet Humfrye, yet she is haunting him for no apparent reason. At the end of the book, he is trying to let go of the WiB (Woman in Black), carry on with the rest of his life and move on.
September 10, 2012 Standing Your Ground in Flannery O’Conner’s “A Good Man is Hard to Find” In Flannery O’Conner’s “A Good Man is Hard to Find”, the grandmother is a main character in the story whose moral value is revealed later to be little to none. The grandmother keeps referring herself to being a “lady” even though throughout the story she is very self-centered, and stubborn, wanting things done her way. In the beginning, she is eager to show how she feels against the family taking vacation to Florida. Instead she wants to travel to visit some of her connections in east Tennessee. While traveling, the grandmother is best dressed from head to toe with her collars and cuffs being white organdy trimmed with lace, so in case of an accident she would be seen
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.
Throughout the story, we constantly hear of the grandmother’s judgmental views of the misfit. However, when she is faced with her death in the end, her hypocritical side shines through. She tells the Misfit that they are in the same category; that they are both good people. The grandmother, in her way of pleading, tries to convince the Misfit that he is indeed a “good man” even though she thought of him as a terrible person before he held her life in his
His mother defends the side trip as educational and entices the family with stories of treasures behind secret panels. As they start down the dirt road, the previously smuggled cat is thrown into Bailey’s neck causing him to swerve and roll over into a ditch. After the accident Bailey’s rage is vividly pictured in detail “Bailey’s teeth were clattering”. (454) His mother, realizing her error in judgment, decides not to explain the fabrication of her story “the grandmother decided that she would not mention that the house was in Tennessee”. (455) Again, we see these two important characters of the story concerned with only each other‘s existence having little or no regard for the other members of the family.