Although Bailey hates to take the cat on road trips, the grandmother does this because she believes the cat is not able to stay home alone. Along the way to their destination, somewhere in Georgia, the grandmother realizes that an old plantation that she once visited is nearby. She described the house to Bailey making it seem more amusing so that he changes his mind and takes the kids to this so called plantation. The road that they turned into was a dangerous dirt road. They drove for miles and no plantation.
There is an internal conflict, as "the old lady," the grandmother, who lives with her married son, his wife and their three children. The theme is that age doesn't determine wisdom and persistence does not always get you what you want. The irony of the story is the outcome, and irony courses through the events and characters, especially with the grandmother and her granddaughter, June Star. Grandmother had to go everywhere the family went and wouldn't stay home to be queen for a day or for a million dollars, which implies she wasn't wanted but she couldn't be gotten rid of. Grandmother is the first one in the car, as not to be left behind.
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.
She manipulates her son by giving him a newspaper and Grandmother says, “’The Misfit is a loose from the Federal Pen and headed toward Florida and you read here what it says he did to these people’” (O’Conner 420). The family was set on going to Florida, but Grandma wanted to go to Tennessee to see friends. O’Conner stated, “The grandmother didn't want to go to Florida. She wanted to visit some of her connections in east Tennessee and she was seizing at every chance to change Bailey's mind” (420). The grandmother wanted to go and see her friends in Tennessee instead of Florida, which is where the family wanted to go.
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.
Lily runs away from home and is on a journey to find the secrets behind her mother’s life. Lily arrives in Tiburon and see a picture on a jar that she had back home of her mothers. Lily goes to the Boatwright’s house and she did not tell really why she is really there. She keeps her identity to herself and is not ready to tell August Boatwright the truth and keeps it a secret. Lily says, “See my mother had died when I was little, and then my father died in a tractor accident last month on our farm in Spartanburg country…” (73).
In the beginning of the story the grandmother speaks to Bailey trying to convince him to take the family somewhere that she would much rather go, Tennessee, to visit her connections instead of the vacation to Florida. She says, “I wouldn't take my children in any direction with a criminal like that aloose in it. I couldn't answer to my conscience if I did” [O’Connor 224]. She uses the news of the Misfit, murderer as a scare-tactic to urge Bailey to change destinations. Once that approach did not get any reaction the grandmother looks toward her daughter-in-law and continues with “You all ought to take them somewhere else for a change...
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.
I view the grandmother in this story as a southern “lady” with the best of intentions for her family; but, she is also self-righteous and self-serving. The first line of the story tells us the grandmother wants to go to Tennessee to visit friends. She then uses the news article about The Misfit as a reason to not to go to Florida and states that she could not answer to her conscience if she did. In addition, the grandmother knows her son Bailey does not like to travel with the cat, Pitty Sing. The grandmother proceeds to hide Pitty Sing in a basket and brings her along anyway.
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.