A Good Man Is Hard to Find

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After reading “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” by Flannery O’Connor, three words stick out as the theme behind this story. Those three words are ignorance, manipulation, and most importantly grace. The concept of the Christian form of grace is extremely apparent in this story and is perhaps the main theme of this story. This isn’t your typical Sunday school story on grace however. O’Connor takes it to a whole new chilling level when the subjects of this grace happen to be sick, demented, cold-blooded serial killer. The title of this story makes a profound statement. It also poses a deep and complex question, that question being what is a good man? The author raises this question by using the grandmother’s definition of a good man in the story. O’Connor brilliantly uses the grandmother’s ignorance to set up this question. The grandmother is very set in her ways and is extremely narrow minded. She means well at times, but her ignorance fails her for the most part. We can see this ignorance in a statement the grandmother makes as she and her family are taking a road trip, “ In my time, said the grandmother, folding her thin veined fingers, children were more respectful of their native states and their parents and everything else. People did right then. Oh look at the cute little pickaninny! she said and pointed to a Negro child standing in the door of a shack.” (282). In her attempt to make people realize that they should be more respectful like they were back in the “good old days”, she mistakenly disrespects African Americans by calling a small black child a “pickaninny”. The grandmother also seems to throw the word “good” around without any apparent knowledge of what the definition might be. For instance she labels Red Sammy as a “good man” after he complains about the untrustworthiness of people because of a recent incident in which he had been swindled. The
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