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.
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.
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."
The story fires the children's interest, consequently forcing Bailey, to take an unplanned detour down a rough dirt road in search of the house. Suddenly, the grandmother realizes that her memory has deceived her and her struggle for the embarrassment, she involuntarily releases the cat from its hiding place, causing Bailey to lose control of the car. As the family members struggle to free themselves from the ensuing wreck, three
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.
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.
“A Good Man Is Hard To Find”, I s a grotesque yet intriguing story in which Flannery O’Connor demonstrates how a modern family suffers a tragic ending during their family vacation. The Grandmother, the only dynamic character in the story, complains to her son, bailey that she does not want to go to Florida but to Tennessee instead, for the family vacation and warns them about the Misfit. Despite, the Grandmother’s advice about the Misfit, the family still ventures off to Florida where they encounter an unanticipated ending. The story unravels a variety of themes such as; the contrast between past and present, disorder in society and manipulation. O’Connor contrasts the past and the present numerously in “A Good Man Is Hard To Find”.
The idea of loving the way you were brought up and raised, and also the traditions that came along with, so much that in the process you end up putting others down. This seems to be the ironic theme throughout the story. The story starts off with the family all sitting at home preparing for their trip. The grandmother is reading a newspaper article on a character named the Misfit, who has just escaped from prison and is running loose. To deter the family from going to Florida and to go to Tennessee instead the grandmother claims that if they travel to Florida they would certainly have a run in with the Misfit, and it would end in a bad way for all of them.
In Fear and Faith Flannery O’Connor’s short story “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” is a sense of a “wrong turn” story: a family on a car trip attempts to find the childhood home or their matriarch, a seemingly senile old woman, becomes lost and comes to a very horrible end. Readers are astonished by the way the story ends brutally. The Grandmother tells “The Misfit” “Why you’re one of my own children” and touches him on the shoulder. This triggers a kind of automatic horror and shoots her three times. After his partners in crime returns from killing the other family members, he tells them that the Grandmother “would have been a good woman” had there been somebody there “to shoot her every minute of her life.” The two details- the Grandmother’s words to the misfit and his sudden
The grandmother then brings up the topic after noting an article about an escaped convict called “The Misfit” who was heading in the same destination, which was Florida. After all of the disagreements about not wanting to go to Florida, the family still insisted that they were going and nothing will deter them from going. The very next morning the family sets on the long-awaited trip to Florida. The grandmother hides her cat (Pitty Sing) into a basket in the back of the car—she had this notion that she couldn’t “bear” to leave her cat at home while they are on vacation. Also, she wore a dress and a hat with flower designs so people can discern that she is “a lady” if there is any accident that might ensue.