The grandmother reads in the newspaper about a convicted killer, The Misfit, who has escaped from the Federal Pen, and is headed towards Florida. She seizes her opportunity, and points out to Bailey of the breaking news. Her son is easily persuaded by his mother and plans are changed to have the family vacation in east Tennessee. There are times when we opt to be deceitful to others in hopes of protecting a self-image that has been created by our own lies; as a result, we only cause excruciating pain or harm to those who surround us. Unfortunately, the grandmother is not able to see the damage that she causes by her character.
The grandmother wanted to go and see her friends in Tennessee instead of Florida, which is where the family wanted to go. The Grandmother lied and said that the Misfit would be in Florida instead of Tennessee. She did this so Baily, her son, would change his mind about where the family would go for the trip. Throughout the story, the Grandmother is very noisy. She is very concerned with small ideas.
This negative thinking quite possibly could have led to the ultimate rendezvous between the convict and the family. The following day the family heads off to Florida. Another major point of irony happens as the story revolves around the grandmother’s traditional southern values of respect for other people, especially elders. At the same moment as the grandmother is lecturing her grandkids, John Wesley and June Star, about respecting their home state she sees a young Negro boy and says: "Oh look at the cute little pickaninny!”. Her hypocrisy becomes evident as she wants the family to do what she says not what she does.
The grandmother frequently criticizes others on their behavior, such as when she complains about vacationing in Florida where the escaped convict could be and how it would weigh heavily on her conscience. She criticizes the children’s mother, accusing her of not wanting to travel to a place that would allow her children to “be broad” (261). She criticizes the children for not being respectful of their native state Georgia. She never criticizes herself, not even when she realizes that the house with the secret panel she had been thinking of (and the whole cause of the detour) was not in Georgia but actually Tennessee. In her final moments,
O’Connnor In Flannery O’Connor’s short story, “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” the steady plot, character structure, and symbolism play the most compelling roles as the story progresses. The story begins with an unnamed grandmother who desperately wants her family to take a vacation to Tennessee, and not go to their already planned out trip to Florida. More selfish acts by the grandma pan out throughout the story, and they all go to form a bigger picture. She ends up going on the trip to Florida with her family, and in the car she decides to dress up so that way, in the event of an accident, she would still look like a lady while she’s dead. This thought of hers goes to show that she is not necessarily considerate of others, because while she may look like a lady while she dies, she doesn’t keep in mind that if the car were to get into an accident, the rest of the family would probably die as well.
In the beginning of the story, the grandmother was a selfish and manipulative person. By reading the first few sentences, you can notice that she does not want to go Florida because she wants to go to Tennessee to see some relatives. Whenever something runs up against the grandmother’s will, she tries to get it her way. She does not say I want to go to Tennessee, but she try to scarves him with the report of a criminal on the loose who is heading to Florida. She said, “Just you read it.
The beginning of the story starts off with the Grandmother trying to persuade her family not to take the road trip to Florida. She brings up the release of the Misfit, a serial killer, saying "I couldn't answer to my conscience" if the family came across him as if she was referring to herself. From here, every decision or thought made by the Grandmother steers her wrong, as a consequence for ignoring her first instinct. The Grandmother is first in the car, ready to go. She dresses like a lady "just in case" something may happen to her.
O'Connor's irony can be seen as sacramental, not because it works with the stuff of religious belief and non-belief, which it does, but because it itself operates as a vehicle of revelation. (Wynne) From the very beginning of the story the grandmother uses a newspaper article about a recent escapee to try to deter the family from driving down to Florida because she would rather go to Tennessee. She warns them that the Misfit is on the loose and if they ran into him it would be trouble. This is ironic because the Misfit is exactly who they ran into on their trip, she was dramatically warning the family of the worst situation possible, and ironically the worst situation possible is exactly what they got. Not all the irony in the story was dark.
The Tragic Fall of the Family In “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” by Flannery O’Connor, the author creates a character called The Misfit who kills a family. The story begins with the family discussing where to travel on their vacation. The grandmother tries to tell the family that there is an escaped convict in Florida where they are travelling and that they should not go there. But instead the family does not listen to her and they are destined for tragedy. There are many elements that foreshadow the tragic events to come.
English Composition "A Good Man is Hard to Find" by Flannery O'Connor" A Good Man is Hard to Find" by Flannery O'Connor begins with the grandmother who doesn't want to go where the family wants to go on vacation. Instead, grandmother wants to meet up with some of her connections in Tennessee, not even people the whole family knows. The setting takes place in route, in the south, Georgia, and ends on an untraveled, desolate, dirt road. Several mannerisms of the speech from the South are evident, especially when grandmother calls a Negro a "pickaninny". When the eight year old grandson, John Wesley, asks his grandmother where the plantation is, she answers, "Gone with the Wind."