A Good Man Is Hard To Find

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Selfishness Kills “She reached out and touched him on the shoulder. The Misfit sprang back as if a snake had bitten him and shot her three times through the chest (Inside Literature 1204).” “A Good Man Is Hard to Find,” by Flannery O’Connor, is a story of a family’s vacation trip to Florida. On their way to Florida, because of the Grandmother’s insistence to search a false hidden treasure they head off to a deserted dirt road where they have car accident. The only ones that see them is a group of man who end up killing the whole family because one of them is recognized by the Grandmother as the “Misfit,” a man who committed a crime and is being chased by the cops. 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. Another part where we can anticipate something happening is when we find out that the Grandmother secretly takes Pitty Sing the cat with them, even though she knows that her son does not like to arrive at a motel with a cat. Eventually, Pitty Sing is the main cause of the car accident. The idea that in the whole state the family could run into this one particular man is completely absurd, that is why when it actually comes true it is so ironic. The first obvious
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