A Good Man Is Hard to Find

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The short story “A Good Man is Hard to Find” By Flannery O’Connor is an interesting story with a surprising twist. The story starts out with a small family and their grandmother going for a nice trip to Florida. It foreshadows by the grandmother talking about the criminal named the Misfit who recently showed up in the news. In the middle of their trip they have a random car accident and the family encounters the Misfit. The Misfit does a horrible thing to the whole family in the end which is such a surprise to a story that starts out pleasant. In this short story by O’Connor the literary elements used are theme, symbolism, and situational irony. To begin with, theme is a literary element in “A Good Man Is Hard to Find”. A theme that is expressed throughout the story is the definition of a “good man.” The grandmother in the story says it many times. It is first mentioned when the grandmother tells Sammy that he is a good man. Sammy complains saying, “Said they worked at the mill and you know I let them fellers charge the gas they bought? Now why did I do that?” (138). In the grandmother’s eyes, Sammy is a good man because to her his action seems gullible and he is an innocent man to do that. Since he let the men go without paying he is considered a “good man” in her eyes. Also the grandmother refers the Misfit to a “good man”. In the end of the short story the grandmother tries her hardest to calm the criminal and tells him that he is a good man. In her eyes she thinks that he is not capable of killing a lady, little does she know that the Misfit does not have the same morals as her. Therefore the Misfit is not a “good man” and kills her. Secondly, symbolism is another literary element used in “A Good Man Is Hard to Find”. In this short story the grandmother’s hat is a symbol for being a lady. It is said in the story that, “ In case of an

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