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Analysis of Flannery O’Connor’s A Good Man Is Hard to Find

By NASRULLAH MAMBROL on May 25, 2021

Frequently anthologized, “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” exemplifies Flannery O’Connor’s southern religious grounding. The story depicts the impact of Christ on the lives of two seemingly disparate characters. One is a grandmother joining her son’s family on a trip to Florida. Accompanied by a silent daughter-in-law, a baby, two unpleasant children, and her smuggled cat, she wheedles the son into making a detour to see a plantation that she remembers from an earlier time.

Moments of recognition and connection multiply as the seemingly foreordained meeting of the grandmother and the killer she has read about in the paper takes place. She upsets the basket in which she has hidden her cat; the cat lands on her son’s neck, causing an accident. Soon three men appear on the dirt road, and the grandmother recognizes one of them as the notorious killer the Misfit.

research paper on a good man is hard to find

Flannery O’Connor/National Catholic Register

O’Connor weaves the notion of punishment and Christian love into the conversation between the Misfit and the grandmother while the grandmother’s family is being murdered. Referring to the similarity that he shares with Christ, the Misfit declares that “Jesus thrown everything off balance” (27), but he admits that unlike Christ, he must have committed a crime because there were papers to prove it. When the grandmother touches his shoulder because she sees him as one of her own children, she demonstrates a Christian love that causes him to shoot her.

This story typifies O’Connor’s mingling of comedy, goodness, banality, and violence in her vision of a world that, however imperfect, most readers inevitably recognize as part of their own. O’Connor views the world as a place where benevolence and good intentions conflict with perversity and evil, and her protagonists frequently learn too late that their lives can crumble in an instant when confronted by the very real powers of darkness.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Kessler, Edward. Flannery O’Connor and the Language of Apocalypse. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1986. Orvell, Miles. Flannery O’Connor: An Introduction. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1991

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Analysis of Flannery O'Connor's Story, 'A Good Man Is Hard to Find'

Good Versus Evil in a Road Trip Gone Awry

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"A Good Man Is Hard to Find," first published in 1953, is among the most famous stories by Georgia writer Flannery O'Connor . O'Connor was a staunch Catholic, and like most of her stories, "A Good Man Is Hard to Find" wrestles with questions of good and evil and the possibility of divine grace.

A grandmother is traveling with her family (her son Bailey, his wife, and their three children) from Atlanta to Florida for a vacation. The grandmother, who would prefer to go to East Tennessee, informs the family that a violent criminal known as The Misfit is loose in Florida, but they do not change their plans. The grandmother secretly brings her cat in the car.

They stop for lunch at Red Sammy's Famous Barbecue, and the grandmother and Red Sammy commiserate that the world is changing and "a good man is hard to find."

After lunch, the family begins driving again and the grandmother realizes they are near an old plantation she once visited. Wanting to see it again, she tells the children that the house has a secret panel and they clamor to go. Bailey reluctantly agrees. As they drive down a rough dirt road, the grandmother suddenly realizes that the house she is remembering is in Tennessee, not Georgia.

Shocked and embarrassed by the realization, she accidentally kicks over her belongings, releasing the cat, which jumps onto Bailey's head and causes an accident.

A car slowly approaches them, and The Misfit and two young men get out. The grandmother recognizes him and says so. The two young men take Bailey and his son into the woods, and shots are heard . Then they take the mother, the daughter, and the baby into the woods. More shots are heard. Throughout, the grandmother pleads for her life, telling The Misfit she knows he's a good man and entreating him to pray.

He engages her in a discussion about goodness, Jesus, and crime and punishment. She touches his shoulder, saying, "Why you're one of my babies. You're one of my own children!" but The Misfit recoils and shoots her.

Defining 'Goodness'

The grandmother's definition of what it means to be "good" is symbolized by her very proper and coordinated traveling outfit. O'Connor writes:

In case of an accident, anyone seeing her dead on the highway would know at once that she was a lady.

The grandmother is clearly concerned with appearances above all else. In this hypothetical accident, she worries not about her death or the deaths of her family members, but about strangers' opinions of her. She also demonstrates no concern for the state of her soul at the time of her imagined death, but we think that's because she's operating under the assumption that her soul is already as pristine as her "navy blue straw sailor hat with a bunch of white violets on the brim."

She continues to cling to superficial definitions of goodness as she pleads with The Misfit. She entreats him not to shoot "a lady," as if not murdering someone is just a question of etiquette. And she reassures him that she can tell he's "not a bit common," as if lineage is somehow correlated with morality.

Even The Misfit himself knows enough to recognize that he "ain't a good man," even if he "ain't the worst in the world neither."

After the accident, the grandmother's beliefs begin to fall apart just like her hat, "still pinned to her head but the broken front brim standing up at a jaunty angle and the violet spray hanging off the side." In this scene, her superficial values are revealed as ridiculous and flimsy.

O'Connor tells us that as Bailey is led into the woods, the grandmother:

reached up to adjust her hat brim as if she were going to the woods with him, but it came off in her hand. She stood staring at it, and after a second, she let it fall on the ground.

The things she has thought were important are failing her , falling uselessly around her, and she now has to scramble to find something to replace them.

A Moment of Grace?

What she finds is the idea of prayer, but it's almost as if she's forgotten (or never knew) how to pray. O'Connor writes:

Finally, she found herself saying, 'Jesus, Jesus,' meaning, Jesus will help you, but the way she was saying it, it sounded as if she might be cursing.

All her life, she has imagined that she is a good person, but like a curse, her definition of goodness crosses the line into evil because it is based on superficial, worldly values.

The Misfit may openly reject Jesus, saying, "I'm doing all right by myself," but his frustration with his own lack of faith ("It ain't right I wasn't there") suggests that he's given Jesus a lot more thought than the grandmother has.

When faced with death, the grandmother mostly lies, flatters, and begs. But at the very end, she reaches out to touch The Misfit and utters those rather cryptic lines, "Why you're one of my babies. You're one of my own children!"

Critics disagree on the meaning of those lines, but they could possibly indicate that the grandmother finally recognizes the connectedness among human beings. She may finally understand what The Misfit already knows—that there is no such thing as "a good man," but that there is good in all of us and also evil in all of us, including in her.

This may be the grandmother's moment of grace—her chance at divine redemption. O'Connor tells us that "her head cleared for an instant," suggesting that we should read this moment as the truest moment in the story. The Misfit's reaction also suggests that the grandmother may have hit upon divine truth. As someone who openly rejects Jesus, he recoils from her words and her touch. Finally, even though her physical body is twisted and bloody, the grandmother dies with "her face smiling up at the cloudless sky" as if something good has happened or as if she has understood something important.

A Gun to Her Head

At the beginning of the story, The Misfit starts out as an abstraction for the grandmother. She doesn't really believe they'll encounter him; she's just using the newspaper accounts to try to get her way. She also doesn't really believe that they'll get into an accident or that she'll die; she just wants to think of herself as the kind of person whom other people would instantly recognize as a lady, no matter what.

It is only when the grandmother comes face to face with death that she begins to change her values. (O'Connor's larger point here, as it is in most of her stories, is that most people treat their inevitable deaths as an abstraction that will never really happen and, therefore, don't give enough consideration to the afterlife.)

Possibly the most famous line in all of O'Connor's work is The Misfit's observation, "She would have been a good woman […] if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life." On the one hand, this is an indictment of the grandmother, who always thought of herself as a "good" person. But on the other hand, it serves as final confirmation that she was, for that one brief epiphany at the end, good.

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"A Good Man is Hard to Find" by Flannery O'Connor

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  • Flannery O'Connors' "spoiled prophet" Writing in 1961 to a teacher who had sent her an interpretation of "A Good Man is Hard to Find" that she found especially misguided, Flannery O'Connor described that story as "a duel of sorts between the Grandmother and her superficial beliefs and the Misfit's more profoundly felt involvement in Christ's action which set the world off balance for him." (1) In general, critics have directed their efforts to explaining how the grandmother attains her "moment of grace" when she reaches out to touch the Misfit's shoulder. (2) Few critics have tried to explain the Misfit's part in the duel or how he is involved in Christ's action. The Misfit is in fact a fully developed character with intelligible motives. He is also a prophet, albeit a misguided one, like Hazel Motes in Wise Blood and the two Tarwaters in The Violent Bear It Away. If we consider the Misfit m the light of O'Connor's view of the role of the prophet, we see that he is not a monster, but a tragic figure, the victim of what O'Connor regarded as a profound misunderstanding of the relation between humanity and God.
  • Flannery O'Connor's Murderous Imagination: Southern Ladyhood in "A Good Man Is Hard to Find" "A Good Man Is Hard to Find" ranks high on the short list for most violent finales in American literature. Held at gunpoint, an elderly grandmother clutches her handkerchief and blurts out one last cry of despair: "I know you wouldn't shoot a lady!" (The Complete Stories 131-32). Leave it to Flannery O'Connor to amuse readers by pumping a granny full of lead, then handing over her pet cat to the man behind the trigger. It is Southern gothic at its best, and O'Connor pulls the whole thing off with deadpan humor. Apparently certain feminist critics take O'Connor completely seriously. Sarah Gordon, for one, winces from the violence targeted at the grandmother and her female characters more generally. (1) To her credit she spots the stock image for womanhood "embedded in the grandmother's consciousness, preoccupied as she is with ladylike appearance and with Tara-like plantations." While Gordon admits that "O'Connor was rebelling against that silly image," what she fails to grasp is the grotesque violence has more to do with hostility to clichés than cruelty to women (Gordon 13). By the 1950s the Southern belle had circulated widely as an iconic figure in both literary and popular culture. The grandmother's unseemly exit, more than anything else, bids good riddance to a worn-out type for fictional heroines.

research paper on a good man is hard to find

  • Part 2 - O'Connor's "A good man is hard to find" in Masterpieces of short fiction by Michael Krasny Call Number: Audio Visual PN3373 .K73 2008 Publication Date: 2008 The form of the genre, as well as the various ways in which it has evolved, is highlighted along the way with a display of the essential nuts and bolts of storytelling-- plot, character, setting, style, point of view, and theme. A mix of critical approaches will also be brought in to enhance analysis and interpretation and to explore some of the ways we judge and evaluate short fiction.

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Discovering Good | Analysis of A Good Man is Hard to Find

By David Dingfelder

Flannery O’Connor explores the meaning of the word “good” through her short story A Good Man is Hard to Find . After a series of deceptions and wrongdoings, O’Connor depicts a grandma leading her family to be killed by a runaway outlaw named “The Misfit.” While the family was traveling to Florida for vacation, the true journey follows the grandma as she begins to understand the true meaning of the word “good” – the most general and most frequently used adjective of commendation in the English language (Oxford English Dictionary). To define a word so commonly overused and socially defined, O’Connor builds the concept of her definition of “good” through the grandma’s interactions with the other characters in the story. By virtue of her interactions with her family, Red Sammy, and “The Misfit,” the grandma transitions from complete ignorance, to misunderstanding, and finally to acceptance of what it means to be “good.”

Initially depicting the grandma as a flawed character with an entirely misconstrued understanding of the word enables O’Connor to establish what does not qualify as “good.” In addition to the grandma’s heedless acts of deception, the narrative uses children as a pure and untainted lens of judgment to expose the flaws in the grandma’s character. In response to the Grandma’s opening efforts to switch the vacation destination, the little girl June delivers a deeply profound critique: “[The grandma] Wouldn’t stay home for a million bucks… She has to go everywhere we go” (1). The establishment of Grandma’s flaws continues as O’Connor parallels the grandma’s perception of herself with the games of the children. Prior to departing on the trip, the grandma dresses with trimmed “collars and cuffs” so that “anyone seeing her dead on the highway would know at once that she was a lady” (2). This insight into the grandma’s mindset is soon followed by the description of the children identifying clouds in the sky. While seemingly insignificant, the sky serves as an extended metaphor for the grandma’s understanding of goodness across the work. The children identifying clouds signal the grandma’s clouded understanding of what it means to be “good.”  Rather than worrying about the wellbeing of her son or her family in the event of an accident, the grandma is primarily concerned with others perceiving her as a lady. The clouds symbolize the opinions of others that block to the true meaning of goodness, the sun.

The interaction between the grandma and Red Sammy initiates O’Connor’s discovery of the misunderstandings and contradictions involved in the word “good.” Early into the grandma’s discussion with Red Sammy, the definition of the word “good” becomes confounded as the grandma calls Red Sammy “a good man” immediately after Red Sammy defines a car as “good.” Instead of taking this as a compliment, Red Sammy is “struck with this answer” (6). Juxtaposing these uses of the same word exemplifies its overuse and stale meaning – explaining why Red Sammy feels no sense of satisfaction when complimented. O’Connor furthers the problematic use of the word when Red Sammy states, “a good man is hard to find” (6). This statement is riddled with irony as the word “good” is used profusely but a “good man” is uncommon – creating a paradox with which O’Connor argues that a word that represents anything also represents nothing. The conversation with Red Sammy also highlights the inconsistency in Grandma’s definition of “good.” The grandma compliments Red Sammy for being naïve and gullible with his interactions with the two boys stealing gas, yet condemns her granddaughter for her insightful and honest comment earlier. It becomes apparent that the grandma is not only flawed but she is also unsure of how to become good.

Through the grandma’s interaction with “The Misfit,” the story paints the grandma’s reverse bildungsroman moment by depicting a profound environment that accompanies her change in grieving and perceptions surrounding what it means to be good.

A raw and honest atmosphere is developed as O’Connor describes the cloudless sky with nothing around the grandma but the woods (9). Contrary earlier in the work, the clouds that blocked the sky had cleared, symbolizing the clarity in the grandma’s perception of goodness. Further, this moment of reckoning takes place on the side of a dirt road with the woods in the background – a natural and profound environment. The use of imagery hints towards the deeply philosophical understanding of morality and goodness that the grandma gains from this interaction.

The shift in the grandma’s grieving signifies the acknowledgment of what it means to be good. Immediately after the grandma realizes that the man was “The Misfit,” she selfishly questions, “You wouldn’t shoot a lady, would you?” (11). The use of the word “lady” again demonstrates that the grandma is still solely concerned about the perception of others, in addition to her not caring about her family. However, her grieving changes as she starts wailing “Bailey boy” for her son (12). This appears to be the first time in the work that the grandma is concerned about someone other than herself. This transition expresses O’Connor’s belief that goodness is an internal trait that is portrayed to – rather than perceived by – others. When the grandma stopped worrying about her perception and started worrying about her family is when she became good.

Further, O’Connor argues that goodness transcends superficial actions such as practicing religion. Despite the grandma’s attempts to pray, “she opened and closed her mouth several times before anything came out” (15). Her inability to pray symbolizes that prayer and religion do not equate goodness.  This realization is what causes the grandma to understand that no actions define what it means to be good. Despite their differences, the grandma now understands that little differentiates her and the misfit, stating, “Why you’re [The Misfit] one of my babies. You’re one of my own children” (16). In denial, The Misfit recoils at the accusation that he is good too and shoots the grandma three times. The grandma dies happily with “with her legs crossed under her like a child’s and her face smiling up at the cloudless sky,” tying back into the innocence and purity associated with children (16).

O’Connor’s development of a definition for the word “good” ultimately serves as a social critique. Due to the overuse of the word, the definition of “good” has been spread too thin, depriving the word of true meaning. While a grave ending, this short story serves as a reminder of that “goodness” is not obtained through performative demonstrations or self-centered thoughts. O’Connor’s choice to never fully define the word “good” indicates how the definition of “good” continues to elude us. On the path to becoming good, the first step is identifying what does not qualify as good.

Sources Cited

“Definition of Good.” UNC-Chapel Hill Libraries, Oxford English Dictionary,

www-oed-com.libproxy.lib.unc.edu/view/Entry/79925?rskey=d7aiwZ&result=1#eid.

O’Connor, Flannery.  “A Good Man is Hard to Find.”  American Studies at the University of

Virginia, 2009, http://xroads.virginia.edu/~drbr/goodman.html.   Originally published in

T he Avon Book of Modern Writing .  New York: Avon Publishing, 1953, pp. 27-33.

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A Good Man is Hard to Find

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A Good Man Is Hard to Find: Critique Paper

Introduction.

Flannery O’ Connor’s works were paradoxical in the sense that element of religion, humor and horror appear at the same time. She has become famous especially as a short story writer and had an impressive collection in her short life of just 39 years. She died in 1964 from a disease called disseminated lupus, apparently passed on from her father. Conner’s childhood was among a deeply religious society in Georgia, which reflected in most of her writings as an adult. “Along with authors like Carson McCullers and Eudora Welty, Flannery O’Connor belonged to the Southern Gothic tradition that focused on the decaying South and its damned people”. (Flannery O. Connor (1925 – 1964), Books and Writers). The short story ‘A Good Man Is Hard to Find’ is considered by many as her finest work and appeared in a short story collection having the same name. Other notable works include Wise Blood, The Violent Bear it Away and Mystery and Manners (a prose collection). This paper is a critique of her best work ‘A Good Man Is Hard to Find’.

A person who is unfamiliar with the works of O’ Conner might be shocked at how the story ends. There is no indication of what will happen in the end throughout the story except when the family meets with the villain of the piece. The story starts off with a family starting on a vacation trip by road to Florida. The main protagonist of the story is the unnamed grandmother, her son, wife and two obnoxious children. The morning papers were full of news about an escaped convict referred as the Misfit. The grandmother who is not too keen to go to Florida attempts to change the destination by pointing out her son (and other family members) that they should not visit a place where a dangerous criminal is on the loose. But no one takes her seriously. The grandmother had secretly taken her cat along for the trip (packed into a bag) and by the end of the day jumps out of it on to the unsuspecting son who was driving. The car crashes even though no one is seriously hurt. While waiting for help (the place was on a deserted stretch) the Misfit along with two assistants comes along. The grandmother recognizes the man and it becomes necessary for the criminal to kill the whole family. He shoots them one by one including the grandmother who keeps waiting till the last. The reader is quite literally misled into believing that the plot will move sedately along even though an encounter with the Misfit is a possibility.

The story does not contain any real positive (not necessarily evil) characters except for the Red Sammy who runs a restaurant where the family has lunch during their trip. The family is also shown to have deep rooted Southern values and is concerned with those who fit in the society based on values and color. The instance where the grandmother refers to a black boy as nigger is evidence for this. The grandmother comes across to the reader as selfish, arrogant and manipulative. The son named Bailey is quite inefficient in handling things, but thinks of himself as otherwise. Bailey’s wife is shown to be a bit dull and the two children John Wesley and June Star are obnoxious and badly behaved. They also complain a lot about things in general. The Misfit who is evil personified “looks ‘educated,’ and apparently killed his own father. He is gray-haired, smart and chillingly exact. He is also polite, and can kill without much remorse.” (The Misfit, Character Guide, Free Study Guide: A Good Man Is Hard To Find by Flannery O’Connor – BookNotes).  The most ‘interesting’ part of the story is at the very end namely the verbal encounter between the grandmother and the Misfit. The woman’s naivety is clearly shown by her belief that all good men are rich, polite and well-dressed. The Misfit actually fits in with her image of a good man and she tries to reason with him not to kill her. In that moment, she even thinks of the Misfit as a long lost son. The man on the other hand is totally remorseless. He also seems to have grasped the character of the grandmother in such a short time because his words soon after killing her were that she “would have been a good woman… if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life”.

It is difficult to understand why such a deeply religious author should create characters that are hypocritical, dull, rude or evil without too many redeeming features in any of them. A typical reader will find it difficult to understand the reason why the plot moves towards its sickening climax. This would be applicable to people with normal sensibilities and maybe those readers who enjoy reading about shocking violence may be appealed by it. Beverly Lyon Clark, a contributing editor with Georgetown University has clearly endorsed this when she wrote that “My students have trouble dealing with the horror that O’Connor evokes–often they want to dismiss the story out of hand….”. (Classroom Issues and Strategies, Beverly Lyon Clark, Flannery O’Connor (1925-1964)). A typical reader will totally agree with this sentiment about the horror that the story evokes. Literary critic and author Alfred Castle has his own views which is quite similar to what has been said above. He writes that “The alarming story of an entire family’s ruthless extermination is easily summarized, if not easily understood.” (Flannery O Conner, Alfred Castle, a Good Man is Hard to Find, Literary Encyclopedia).

But the plus point here is that this horror and violence can enable a serious student of the work to think more deeply about human values or more specifically the lack of it. The thought that can come up in the mind of the student could be that all people have in them a basic tendency towards hypocrisy, racism and even evil. Clark goes on to say that the author tries to shock people into sensibility and awareness of religion through her writings. Castle also has similar views on her style of writing. According to him, people do not have the ability to choose the right action from the wrong ones. He adds that O’ Conner intends to tell her readers that this inability can only be corrected with God’s grace. But my personal feeling here is that there is nothing in the short story that indicates this reasoning. It is up to the reader to deduce all these from his or her own personal values and thoughts.

O’ Conner in her general writings agree that what she writes will shock people. But she adds that whatever comes from the South is generally considered to be ‘grotesque’ by Northern readers. She also caustically adds that anything really grotesque in Southern writing will be called normal by the same readers. Hence there is no use in writing a normal story. This cannot be a justification to write in the way that O’Conner does in most of her works.

Even though the story is laced with humor, the end result is that a person feels depressed at the end. The bleakness or negativity of the characters and the violence at the end is the reason for this feeling. There are plenty of authors who write more shocking stuff than what is seen in O’Conner’s works. Personally I feel that O’ Conner will only be an addition to that list. Of course the positive points that have been mentioned earlier (about making people think) still stand. There are other horror writers who write just to shock people (who like to be shocked) without any intention whatsoever to make people think. They do it just because there is a market for such writing. In that angle, ‘A Good Man Is Hard to Find’ does have the ability to make people think about good and evil and also about the grace of God. But that only happens if the reader also reads a well crafted criticism of the story. This is unlikely unless the reader is a serious student of literature or takes up the subject as a serious hobby. Otherwise the work my end up as being “dismissed offhand” or termed as “difficult to understand” by most readers. If not O’ Conner might be considered just as another writer who writes horror fiction (as mentioned earlier in this section). The person who enjoys her work will be a fan of horror fiction who like being shocked by such stories of evil.

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  • Themes & Motifs in A Good Man Is Hard to Find Genre: Essay Words: 1665 Focused on: A Good Man Is Hard to Find: themes Characters mentioned: the Grandmother, the Misfit, Bailey, the children’s mother. June Star, John Wesley
  • Dialogues in O’Connor’s A Good Man is Hard to Find Genre: Essay Words: 643 Focused on: A Good Man Is Hard to Find: literary analysis Characters mentioned: the Grandmother, the Misfit
  • Qualities in A Good Man is Hard to Find by O’Connor Genre: Essay Words: 616 Focused on: A Good Man Is Hard to Find: themes Characters mentioned: the Grandmother, the Misfit
  • A Rose for Emily and A Good Man is Hard to Find Genre: Essay Words: 1126 Focused on: A Good Man Is Hard to Find: compare & contrast Characters mentioned: the Grandmother, the Misfit
  • The Grandmother in A Good Man Is Hard to Find Genre: Essay Words: 606 Focused on: A Good Man Is Hard to Find: characters Characters mentioned: the Grandmother, the Misfit
  • Religion in A Good Man Is Hard to Find Genre: Essay Words: 950 Focused on: A Good Man Is Hard to Find: themes Characters mentioned: The Grandmother, Bailey, John Wesley, June Star, Red Sam
  • The Old Age Concept in O’Connor’s A good man is hard to find Genre: Essay Words: 678 Focused on: A Good Man Is Hard to Find: characters Characters mentioned: Bailey, Bobby Lee, The Grandmother, Hiram, John Wesley, June Star, The Misfit
  • Themes in A Good Man Is Hard to Find Genre: Essay Words: 1047 Focused on: A Good Man Is Hard to Find: themes Characters mentioned: The Grandmother, The Misfit
  • The Message of Flannery O’Connor’s A Good Man Is Hard To Find Genre: Essay Words: 899 Focused on: A Good Man Is Hard to Find: themes Characters mentioned: The Grandmother, The Misfit, Red Sam
  • Psychoanalytical Analysis of A Good Man Is Hard to Find and Revelation Genre: Essay Words: 1382 Focused on: A Good Man Is Hard to Find: compare & contrast Characters mentioned: The Grandmother, The Misfit
  • A Good Man is Hard to Find: the Grandmother Genre: Essay Words: 617 Focused on: A Good Man Is Hard to Find: characters Characters mentioned: The Grandmother, The Misfit, Bailey, Red Sam
  • Violence in A Good Man Is Hard To Find Genre: Essay Words: 822 Focused on: A Good Man Is Hard to Find: themes Characters mentioned: The Grandmother, The Misfit, Bailey, John Wesley
  • A Good Man Is Hard to Find: Characterization Genre: Essay Words: 700 Focused on: A Good Man Is Hard to Find: themes Characters mentioned: The Grandmother, The Misfit, Bailey
  • Flannery O’Connor’s A Good Man Is Hard To Find: Themes Genre: Essay Words: 826 Focused on: A Good Man Is Hard to Find: themes Characters mentioned: The Grandmother, The Misfit, Red Sam, Bailey
  • A good man is hard to find: the Grandmother as a Character Genre: Essay Words: 681 Focused on: A Good Man Is Hard to Find: characters Characters mentioned: The Grandmother, The Misfit, Bailey
  • Representation of Family in A Good Man is Hard to Find Genre: Essay Words: 561 Focused on: A Good Man Is Hard to Find: themes Characters mentioned: The Grandmother, The Misfit, Bailey
  • A Good Man is Hard to Find: Literary Analysis Genre: Critical writing Words: 1106 Focused on: A Good Man Is Hard to Find: analysis Characters mentioned: The Grandmother, The Misfit, Bailey
  • A Good Man Is Hard to Find vs Good Country People: Themes & Characters Analysis Genre: Research paper Words: 2321 Focused on: A Good Man Is Hard to Find: compare & contrast Characters mentioned: The Grandmother

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Study Guide Menu

  • Short Summary
  • Summary & Analysis
  • Essay Examples
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  • Flannery O’Connor: Biography
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IvyPanda . (2023) 'A Good Man Is Hard to Find: Essay Examples'. 13 August.

IvyPanda . 2023. "A Good Man Is Hard to Find: Essay Examples." August 13, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/lit/a-good-man-is-hard-to-find-study-guide/essay-examples/.

1. IvyPanda . "A Good Man Is Hard to Find: Essay Examples." August 13, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/lit/a-good-man-is-hard-to-find-study-guide/essay-examples/.

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IvyPanda . "A Good Man Is Hard to Find: Essay Examples." August 13, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/lit/a-good-man-is-hard-to-find-study-guide/essay-examples/.

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  1. Research Paper: a Good Man Is Hard to Find

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  2. (PDF) A GOOD MAN IS HARD TO FIND AND OTHER STORIES

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  3. ⇉Literary Analysis on a Good Man Is Hard to Find Essay Example

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COMMENTS

  1. (Pdf) Analysis of Social Problem in A Good Man Is Hard to Find by

    This research applied descriptive qualitative. The data source is the short story which title is "A Good Man Is Hard to Find" by Flannery O'Connor. The results of this study are: (1) Family ...

  2. "A Good Man Is Hard to Find" by Flannery O'Connor Research Paper

    Bethea's approach in O'Connor's book, "A Good Man Is Hard to Find," takes an indication that God's elegance was moved from God Himself to Grandma, then to Misfit, the criminal. Bethea uses symbols from the Bible throughout the story to position religion. For example, the trinity symbolized by three in Catholicism represents the ...

  3. EXPERIENCING FLANNERY O'CONNOR'S 'A Good Man Is Hard To Find'

    workings of grace in the sensibility of the reader, that rare reader who would go deeper. "The meaning of fiction is not abstract meaning, but experienced meaning," O'Connor states.1 An excellent example of the dynamics between O'Connor's art and the reader is "A Good Man Is Hard to Find." Apparently, O'Connor thought.

  4. A Good Man Is Hard to Find: Literary Critical Analysis Essay

    The action of "A Good Man is Hard to Find" depicts a family vacation gone terribly awry. On a road trip to Florida a family from Atlanta encounter a homicidal escaped convict whom the media dubs The Misfit. The Misfit and his henchmen execute the entire family and steal their clothes, car and cat. O'Connor tells the story from the point ...

  5. Analysis of Flannery O'Connor's A Good Man Is Hard to Find

    Frequently anthologized, "A Good Man Is Hard to Find" exemplifies Flannery O'Connor's southern religious grounding. The story depicts the impact of Christ on the lives of two seemingly disparate characters. One is a grandmother joining her son's family on a trip to Florida. Accompanied by a silent daughter-in-law, a baby, two unpleasant ...

  6. A Good Man Is Hard to Find

    A good man is hard to find You always get another kind Yes'n when you think that he's your pal You look and find him fooling round some old gal. Then you rage, you all crazed, You want to see him down in his grave. So if your man is nice, take my advice: Hug him in the morning, kiss him at night. Give him plenty lovin' - treat your good man right.

  7. A Summary and Analysis of Flannery O'Connor's 'A Good Man Is Hard to Find'

    The character of the grandmother is central to the dramatic power of 'A Good Man Is Hard to Find'. The first two words of the story are 'The grandmother'; the story begins with her warning her son about the escaped Misfit and ends with her being shot dead by the Misfit; the story opens with the third-person narrator's reference to Bailey as the grandmother's 'only boy' but ends ...

  8. Character Analysis Through Politeness in A Good Man Is Hard to Find by

    Abstract. This paper analyses the grandmother, the main character, in A Good Man Is Hard to Find, one of Flannery O'Connor's most famous short stories, in the light of pragmatic conversation ...

  9. Analysis of the novel, 'A Good Man Is Hard to Find'

    Updated on July 25, 2019. "A Good Man Is Hard to Find," first published in 1953, is among the most famous stories by Georgia writer Flannery O'Connor. O'Connor was a staunch Catholic, and like most of her stories, "A Good Man Is Hard to Find" wrestles with questions of good and evil and the possibility of divine grace.

  10. A Good Man Is Hard to Find: Study Guide

    A Good Man Is Hard to Find by Flannery O'Connor was first published in 1953 in a book under the same name. The short story has become one of the most famous works by the author. It is also one of the most well-known examples of Southern Gothic literature. O'Connor, in her turn, has become a recognized master of the genre, though she ...

  11. A Good Man Is Hard To Find: Study Guide

    Flannery O'Connor's "A Good Man Is Hard to Find," published in 1953, is a Southern Gothic short story that skillfully blends elements of dark humor, violence, and religious symbolism.Set in the American South, the narrative follows a dysfunctional family on a road trip. The grandmother, a central character, manipulates the trip's direction to visit an old plantation, leading the family ...

  12. Research Guides: Good Man is Hard to Find, A: Home

    Multimedia. Work. "A Good Man Is Hard to Find" in Short Stories for Students. Call Number: eBook. Publication Date: 1997. Contains concise synopses of the story's plots, characters and themes along with a brief author biography, a discussion of the story's cultural and historical significance and excerpted criticism.

  13. Discovering Good

    O'Connor furthers the problematic use of the word when Red Sammy states, "a good man is hard to find" (6). This statement is riddled with irony as the word "good" is used profusely but a "good man" is uncommon - creating a paradox with which O'Connor argues that a word that represents anything also represents nothing.

  14. A Good Man is Hard to Find Summary & Analysis

    Summary. Analysis. The story opens on the Grandmother (unnamed), whose family is about to take a trip to Florida. Unlike the rest of her family, however, the Grandmother would rather go to Tennessee. She shows a newspaper article to her son Bailey, whose house she lives in.

  15. A Good Man Is Hard to Find, Flannery O'Connor

    SOURCE: "Advertisements for Grace: Flannery O'Connor's 'A Good Man Is Hard to Find'," in Studies in Short Fiction, Vol. IV, No. 1, Fall, 1966, pp. 19-37. [In the following essay, Marks analyzes "A ...

  16. Religion-Based Morality in "A Good Man Is Hard to Find" by Flannery O

    One of the reasons why the short story A Good Man Is Hard to Find by Flannery O'Connor is being commonly referred to, as such that represents a high literary value, is that while exposed to it, readers become enlightened as to the fact that, while remaining affiliated with the provisions of the religion-based morality, people grow increasingly dangerous to themselves and their close relatives.

  17. O'Connor's A Good Man is Hard to Find

    O'Connor's A Good Man is Hard to Find. The Explicator: Vol. 64, No. 4, pp. 246-249. ... This study aims to describe the problems of social problems contained in the short story "A Good Man Is Hard to Find" by Flannery O'Connor. This research applied descriptive qualitative. ... Showing 1 through 3 of 0 Related Papers. 3 Citations; 5 References ...

  18. Reviews -- "A Good Man Is Hard to Find": Flannery

    Full Text. "A GOOD MAN IS HARD TO FIND": FLANNERY O'CONNOR, edited by Frederick Asals. Women Writers: Texts and Contexts. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1993. 180 pages. $30 cloth; $8 paper. Just about everyone who has had to read Flannery O'Connor's "A Good Man Is Hard to Find" in some anthologized format, casebook, or critical ...

  19. A Good Man Is Hard to Find: Critique Paper

    Bailey's wife is shown to be a bit dull and the two children John Wesley and June Star are obnoxious and badly behaved. They also complain a lot about things in general. The Misfit who is evil personified "looks 'educated,' and apparently killed his own father. He is gray-haired, smart and chillingly exact.

  20. Analysis of (Mary) Flannery O'Connor's "A Good Man Is Hard To Find

    Introduction. Authentically, 'a good man' is a person who posses excellent or admirable moral conduct. Flannery O'Connor is a staunch Catholic but a famous playwright in the American industry whose storylines mainly focus on Christianity with tragic and brutal as thematic features.

  21. The Absurd Theme in "A Good Man is Hard to Find"

    The Absurd Theme in "A Good Man is Hard to Find". Yang Zhao. Published 12 November 2017. Art. Flannery O'Connor is a celebrated 20 century American woman writer. Her stories seem to be easy and humorous; actually they are shocking and startling. Irregular plot, blood and violence, gloomy religion, typical southern setting, together with ...

  22. A Good Man Is Hard to Find: Essay Examples

    The Old Age Concept in O'Connor's A good man is hard to find. Genre: Essay. Words: 678. Focused on: A Good Man Is Hard to Find: characters. Characters mentioned: Bailey, Bobby Lee, The Grandmother, Hiram, John Wesley, June Star, The Misfit. Themes in A Good Man Is Hard to Find. Genre: Essay.

  23. Research Paper: a Good Man Is Hard to Find

    The grandmother was slowly beginning to turn into one but never made it all the way. "So take a chance, and take a look at Flannery O'Connor. Prepare to laugh, to be shocked, and to think. But most of all, be prepared to see." -Welborn. There are many symbols in A Good Man is Hard to Find. "A Symbol is something that represents ...