A Good Man Is Hard to Find by Flannery O’Connor

In A Good musical composition is firm to meet, by Flannery OConnor, the theme is grace, the idea that nonhing we do scum bag save us from our knowledge faults. In the beginning of the bilgewater, the gran talks ab off(a) how you cannot nevertheless trust anybody in the sphere, while she is rattling macrocosm more untrus twainrthy than those of the world. After reading the bosh, you can confab how her actions and her words ar teetotal because she is actu consentaneousy lying and cheating the family. Analyzing the theatrical roles, setting, and mockery of the twaddle, we can see how trust is a major thin come forth throughout the flooring and how they stupefy a rather impaired family.In A Good hu human beingness is Hard to go, the contributions are important because their thoughts and actions merstwhile(a) unneurotic and make the report what it is. If there were angiotensin-converting enzyme region missing, the tarradiddle would not be the same. The du mbfound is a character that knottyly presents any role, and barely ever vocalises anything. Also, in the wreck, the scram was the however one who got hurt. The main(prenominal) thing the mother does is take rail motorrail focal point automobilee of the baby. With that being said, the character of the baby is or soly besides to take up the mothers attention. Also, taking some of the grandmas attention when she holds the baby in her lap for only a few minutes during the ride.June necromancer is Baileys daughter. Throughout the composition, we learn that she is a rather discourteous little girl. She makes rude remarks to e re all toldyone like I wouldnt live in a broken-down plate like this for a million bucks (OConnor, 408) to deprivation surface-to-air missiles wife when talking to the baby. For the most part, she is just a bothersome little girl. Her brother, joke Wesley, is almost just as bad. During the bilgewater, he mostly torments the granny and kicks the fa thers seat repeatedly throughout the whole car ride. He, along with June Star, is disappointed when they make water there were no fatalities in the car stroking.Red Sam is the restaurant owner where the family stopped to eat. Red Sam states, a near(a) man is hard to find (409), when explaining to the nanna close to the men who never gainful their tab. He penurys to see the ripe(p) in e genuinelybody, but explains, Everything is getting terrible. I remember the day you could go off and leave your screen threshold unlatched. Not no more. (409) Bailey is the grandmas only son. He is June Star and John Wesleys father, as well the driver of the car. Bailey likes to think that he is in control of everything, when in reality he is not.He lets the granny s counseling him into handout to Tennessee instead of Florida, where he had primarily intended on taking his family. Bailey and John Wesley are one of the first the get shot later the accident. The grandmother in the story is rather manipulative. From the beginning to the end, she is endlessly nagging and talking the family into different plans. Not only is she this way towards the family, but she in any case tries to talk the Misfit out of turn thumbs downing her and tries to convince him that he is a good boy. She does so by saying things like Youve got good blood I know you wouldnt shoot a ladyI know you gravel from nice people (415). Also, the grandmother is very cin one caseited an poser would be when the narrator says, In carapace of an accident, anyone seeing her dead on the highway would know at once she was a lady (406). The grandmother is so tied up with herself that she doesnt want to take over when she is wrong, when on several occasions in the story, she is wrong. The Misfit is a character who injects along towards the end of the story. Arthur Bethea describes The Misfit is an anti-Christ. Jesus love children, whereas children make the anti-Christ Misfit nervous (247).He, along wi th his two-gang men, has escape from prison and now on the loose. They come along after the accident, looking like they are going to be good Samaritans, when actu entirelyy they turn out to be murderers on the run. Along with the role the characters licentiousness in the story, the setting is also essential in which it starts in the family unit, moves to the car, and ends in the forest. At the beginning of the story, all the characters are in the house in an unknown city, debating on where they will go on vacation. Of course, the grandmother does not want to go where Bailey has planned.After they argue and figure out where they will go, they get in the car and head for Tennessee. epoch riding in the car, the grandmother starts think her childhood and demands that Bailey go to an old orchard she remembered. Putting them off track, they end up on a dirt road in gallium where the grandmother realizes but does not say that they are in the wrong spot. After having a car accident, they family ends up in a ditch in the center of attention of nowhere. Little by little, each character is taken into the woods and do not return. In the woods is where the story ends, where the Misfit and his gang members ultimately kill the whole family.The characters and the setting are both important, and they come together to create irony that is launchn throughout the whole story. At the beginning of the story, the grandmother ensures us The Misfit is aloose from the Federal compose and headed towards Florida (405) this being her reasoning for not wanting to go to Florida. Little did they know, along the way, the grandmother would get them at sea and lead them right into the Misfits path. onwards coming intact with the Misfit, the grandmother had nothing good to say about him and judged him without knowing the slightest thing about him.Not until later, when coming face to face with him, she automatically changed her tone when she knew that her life history was in jeopar dy. Another example of irony would be dealing with the cat. At first, the cat was not sibylline to come along on the trip. With the grandmother being so hardheaded, she brought the cat along anyways. The cat jumped up, which is when the accident happened. If the grandmother had just make as Bailey said and left the cat, then the accident may not have ever happened. After analyzing the characters, setting, and irony of A Good Man is Hard to Find, we see how these elements are essential for this story.We can see how plastered behaviors of certain characters, like the gran, lead to dangerous circumstances. If only the grannie would not have thought she was best and had to have everything her way, the entire ruckus would not have happened. escape Cited Bethea Arthur F. OConnors A in force(p) MAN IS HARD TO FIND. Explicator 64. 4 (2006) 246-249. Academic Search Premier. Web. 18 Feb. 2013 OConnor, Flannery. A Good Man is Hard to Find. Literature 8th ed. Eds Laurie Kirszner and St ephen Mandell. BostonWadsworth, 2013. 599-621. Print.A Good Man Is Hard to Find By Flannery OConnorCourtney BarnesPage 1 Intro to Lit. Prof. Rupp Feb 18 2013 Youve Got Good Blood Literary Analysis of A Good Man is Hard to Find By Flannery OConnor Youve got good blood. I know you come from nice people,(504) cried the grandmother. beg (505) she pleads using grace and religion to plead to the better nature of what she thinks is still a good man. The story A Good Man is Hard to Find is about a family on vacation to Florida. The family takes a detour down a dirt road to look at an old plantation house that the grandmother tells a story about.She describes the house in such an intriguing way that most of the family is very eager to see it. However on the way the grandmother realizes that the house isnt in atomic number 31 at all but in fact in Tennessee, where she was longing to go instead of Florida. This startles her and she begins bash things around and the cat jumps out of the bas ket landing on Baileys issue causing the car accident that leaves them stranded on the lonely road. When a passing car pelf to attention the grandmother quickly recognizes one of the men as The Misfit, a dangerous man who has escape from prison.The grandmother confronts him and he tells her It probably would have been better for your family if you had not recognized me at all lady. (504) magical spell the Page 2 naan and the Misfit have a conversation about being a good man and how fifty-fifty a man who has turned bad can in fact be good again, the two men that came with the Misfit start breaking apart the family into small groups taking them into the woods to be shot and killed. While her family is being murdered in the woods behind her the Grandmother is pleading for her dear life yelling I know you wouldnt shoot a lady (507) She continued on conversing with the Misfit knowing her family was being brutally murdered, trying to persuade him fanny to a good man. She asks him what he did to go to prison in the first place and he tells her he dont remember, but they tell him that he killed his public address system and they must be right because they have the papers to prove it. As he goes on describing what has happened to him and what they done to him the indorser gets the impression that he was wrongfully convicted. The Grandmother goes on telling him to demand, pray, pray. If you would pray Jesus would help you (507) She goes on telling the Misfit that God has the power to fix things and to bring people back from the dead. She stresses over and over again during the time of their conversation the importance and power of prayer. If you dig deeper into the meaning of the story you can also see that the Grandmother is also pleading and praying for her own forgiveness and life. After all it is her fault that her families passel had become this. The outcome of the story was all consequence of the direct actions of the Grandmother.If she hadnt suggeste d tour the old plantation and made up things to entice the family to want to go then they never would have been on that road. If she wouldnt have brought the cat the accident wouldnt have happened and if she wouldnt have speak of recognizing Page 3 The Misfit murderer then he wouldnt have killed her and her family. She unknowingly led her family to their tragical deaths. In the story the Grandmother is but of course the prominent character. By showing imperfections in her character the condition shows the diagonal property of grace that she possesses.The Grandmother is portrayed as a typical grey woman of this era. She regular(a) dresses very sophisticated for a car trip. She wants to make sure she is recognized as a woman. If she was in an accident anyone seeing her dead on the highway would know at once she was a lady. The main theme of the story is religion. The plot intends to imageize the spiritual grace passed from one forgiving being to another(prenominal) with no r egard to kindness or evil at all. You get a clear sagaciousness of this in how the Grandmother misinterprets the word good. Grace is clearly used when the Grandmother says to the misfit why you are one of my babies.Youre one of my own children (508) This was used to show him and get him to pull in that they are both human beings. The Grandmother believes that because the Misfit is a good man that he cannot shoot a lady, his conscience just wont allow it. This is where she misinterprets good. The Grandmother is the portrayal of blind cartel that so many of us operate daily from. She tones with all her soul that somewhere in this man is good if she digs deep enough she can bring it out in him. Despite all the bad things he has done, even in killing her family she appeals to the good side of him.Page 4 We all want to belief in the good of mankind. In the face of evil its that very hope and belief that bring back the balance of good to evil in the world. The story focuses on Christ ian beliefs and determine depicts sin and punishment, belief and disbelief, good and evil. The Grandmother is representative of good and godliness. She reminisces on how time were good in her younger days and you could trust people The Misfit represents evil. At one point he symbolizes himself with Christ as they were both punished for crimes they did not commit.Christ died for the sins of others however the Misfit murdered innocent people. The children in the story also play an underline role that you have to pay close attention in launch to catch. They are the symbol of the breakdown of respect and discipline of future generations. In a way the story foreshadows into the way the world will be if we dont teach our children respect for people and heritage. The Grandmother also plays a foreshadowing role when she warns her family of the Misfit and his crimes, here this fellow calls himself the Misfit is a loose from the Federal create verbally and headed to Florida. (497). giving the reader the first clue that the family will eventually run into the Misfit. Page 5 The authors symbolisation throughout the story represents credit/lack of, and death. When the family strays from the course in which they set out on where they eventually are murdered symbolizes how people often stray from their faith in Jesus. even so the town Toombsboro is a symbol of death. The graveyard on the plantation is a cover symbol of death. It was a big black battered hearselike automobile, symbolizes death has arrived.The author brings the reader to the conclusion that redbrick society is drastically changing for the worse. Every day we see the evil growing and prevailing in our society. And in the story the author suggests that if everyone would find Jesus our society would once again operate on Christian morals, set and beliefs. If we teach our children about spirituality and respect while holding them to the up most standards we would be improve the future of our nation. Work s Cited A Good Man is Hard to Find Flannery OConnor / Literature and its writers sixth edition 1955A Good Man Is Hard to Find By Flannery OConnorCourtney BarnesPage 1 Intro to Lit. Prof. Rupp Feb 18 2013 Youve Got Good Blood Literary Analysis of A Good Man is Hard to Find By Flannery OConnor Youve got good blood. I know you come from nice people,(504) cried the grandmother. Pray (505) she pleads using grace and religion to plead to the better nature of what she thinks is still a good man. The story A Good Man is Hard to Find is about a family on vacation to Florida. The family takes a detour down a dirt road to look at an old plantation house that the grandmother tells a story about.She describes the house in such an intriguing way that most of the family is very eager to see it. However on the way the grandmother realizes that the house isnt in Georgia at all but in fact in Tennessee, where she was longing to go instead of Florida. This startles her and she begins knocking things around and the cat jumps out of the basket landing on Baileys neck causing the car accident that leaves them stranded on the lonely road. When a passing car stops to help the grandmother quickly recognizes one of the men as The Misfit, a dangerous man who has escaped from prison.The grandmother confronts him and he tells her It probably would have been better for your family if you had not recognized me at all lady. (504) While the Page 2 Grandmother and the Misfit have a conversation about being a good man and how even a man who has turned bad can in fact be good again, the two men that came with the Misfit start breaking apart the family into small groups taking them into the woods to be shot and killed. While her family is being murdered in the woods behind her the Grandmother is pleading for her dear life shouting I know you wouldnt shoot a lady (507) She continued on conversing with the Misfit knowing her family was being brutally murdered, trying to persuade him back to a goo d man. She asks him what he did to go to prison in the first place and he tells her he dont remember, but they tell him that he killed his dad and they must be right because they have the papers to prove it. As he goes on describing what has happened to him and what they done to him the reader gets the impression that he was wrongfully convicted. The Grandmother goes on telling him to pray, pray, pray. If you would pray Jesus would help you (507) She goes on telling the Misfit that God has the power to fix things and to bring people back from the dead. She stresses over and over again during the time of their conversation the importance and power of prayer. If you dig deeper into the meaning of the story you can also see that the Grandmother is also pleading and praying for her own forgiveness and life. After all it is her fault that her families fate had become this. The outcome of the story was all consequence of the direct actions of the Grandmother.If she hadnt suggested visitin g the old plantation and made up things to entice the family to want to go then they never would have been on that road. If she wouldnt have brought the cat the accident wouldnt have happened and if she wouldnt have spoken of recognizing Page 3 The Misfit murderer then he wouldnt have killed her and her family. She unknowingly led her family to their tragic deaths. In the story the Grandmother is but of course the prominent character. By showing imperfections in her character the author shows the biased property of grace that she possesses.The Grandmother is portrayed as a typical southern woman of this era. She even dresses very sophisticated for a car trip. She wants to make sure she is recognized as a woman. If she was in an accident anyone seeing her dead on the highway would know at once she was a lady. The main theme of the story is religion. The plot intends to symbolize the spiritual grace passed from one human being to another with no regard to kindness or evil at all. You get a clear understanding of this in how the Grandmother misinterprets the word good. Grace is clearly used when the Grandmother says to the misfit why you are one of my babies.Youre one of my own children (508) This was used to show him and get him to understand that they are both human beings. The Grandmother believes that because the Misfit is a good man that he cannot shoot a lady, his conscience just wont allow it. This is where she misinterprets good. The Grandmother is the portrait of blind faith that so many of us operate daily from. She beliefs with all her soul that somewhere in this man is good if she digs deep enough she can bring it out in him. Despite all the bad things he has done, even in killing her family she appeals to the good side of him.Page 4 We all want to belief in the good of mankind. In the face of evil its that very hope and belief that bring back the balance of good to evil in the world. The story focuses on Christian beliefs and values depicts sin and punishment, belief and disbelief, good and evil. The Grandmother is representative of good and godliness. She reminisces on how times were good in her younger days and you could trust people The Misfit represents evil. At one point he symbolizes himself with Christ as they were both punished for crimes they did not commit.Christ died for the sins of others however the Misfit murdered innocent people. The children in the story also play an underline role that you have to pay close attention in order to catch. They are the symbol of the breakdown of respect and discipline of future generations. In a way the story foreshadows into the way the world will be if we dont teach our children respect for people and heritage. The Grandmother also plays a foreshadowing role when she warns her family of the Misfit and his crimes, here this fellow calls himself the Misfit is a loose from the Federal Pen and headed to Florida. (497). giving the reader the first clue that the family will eventually run into the Misfit. Page 5 The authors symbolism throughout the story represents faith/lack of, and death. When the family strays from the course in which they set out on where they eventually are murdered symbolizes how people often stray from their faith in Jesus. Even the town Toombsboro is a symbol of death. The graveyard on the plantation is a concrete symbol of death. It was a big black battered hearselike automobile, symbolizes death has arrived.The author brings the reader to the conclusion that modern society is drastically changing for the worse. Every day we see the evil growing and prevailing in our society. And in the story the author suggests that if everyone would find Jesus our society would once again operate on Christian morals, values and beliefs. If we teach our children about spirituality and respect while holding them to the up most standards we would be fixing the future of our nation. Works Cited A Good Man is Hard to Find Flannery OConnor / Literature and its writers 6th edition 1955A Good Man Is Hard to Find by Flannery OConnorIn A Good Man is Hard to Find, by Flannery OConnor, the theme is grace, the idea that nothing we do can save us from our own faults. In the beginning of the story, the grandmother talks about how you cannot even trust anybody in the world, while she is actually being more untrustworthy than those of the world. After reading the story, you can see how her actions and her words are ironic because she is actually lying and cheating the family. Analyzing the characters, setting, and irony of the story, we can see how trust is a major issue throughout the story and how they have a rather dysfunctional family.In A Good Man is Hard to Find, the characters are important because their thoughts and actions mold together and make the story what it is. If there were one character missing, the story would not be the same. The mother is a character that hardly plays any role, and hardly ever says anything. Also, in the wre ck, the mother was the only one who got hurt. The main thing the mother does is take care of the baby. With that being said, the character of the baby is mostly just to take up the mothers attention. Also, taking some of the grandmothers attention when she holds the baby in her lap for only a few minutes during the ride.June Star is Baileys daughter. Throughout the story, we learn that she is a rather disrespectful little girl. She makes rude remarks to everyone like I wouldnt live in a broken-down place like this for a million bucks (OConnor, 408) to Red Sams wife when talking to the baby. For the most part, she is just a bothersome little girl. Her brother, John Wesley, is almost just as bad. During the story, he mostly torments the grandmother and kicks the fathers seat repeatedly throughout the whole car ride. He, along with June Star, is disappointed when they realize there were no fatalities in the car accident.Red Sam is the restaurant owner where the family stopped to eat. R ed Sam states, a good man is hard to find (409), when explaining to the grandmother about the men who never paid their tab. He wants to see the good in everybody, but explains, Everything is getting terrible. I remember the day you could go off and leave your screen door unlatched. Not no more. (409) Bailey is the grandmothers only son. He is June Star and John Wesleys father, also the driver of the car. Bailey likes to think that he is in control of everything, when in reality he is not.He lets the grandmother persuade him into going to Tennessee instead of Florida, where he had primarily intended on taking his family. Bailey and John Wesley are one of the first the get shot after the accident. The grandmother in the story is rather manipulative. From the beginning to the end, she is constantly nagging and talking the family into different plans. Not only is she this way towards the family, but she also tries to talk the Misfit out of killing her and tries to convince him that he is a good boy. She does so by saying things like Youve got good blood I know you wouldnt shoot a ladyI know you come from nice people (415). Also, the grandmother is very conceited an example would be when the narrator says, In case of an accident, anyone seeing her dead on the highway would know at once she was a lady (406). The grandmother is so tied up with herself that she doesnt want to admit when she is wrong, when on several occasions in the story, she is wrong. The Misfit is a character who comes along towards the end of the story. Arthur Bethea describes The Misfit is an anti-Christ. Jesus loved children, whereas children make the anti-Christ Misfit nervous (247).He, along with his two-gang men, has escaped from prison and now on the loose. They come along after the accident, looking like they are going to be good Samaritans, when actually they turn out to be murderers on the run. Along with the role the characters play in the story, the setting is also essential in which i t starts in the house, moves to the car, and ends in the woods. At the beginning of the story, all the characters are in the house in an unknown city, debating on where they will go on vacation. Of course, the grandmother does not want to go where Bailey has planned.After they argue and figure out where they will go, they get in the car and head for Tennessee. While riding in the car, the grandmother starts remembering her childhood and demands that Bailey go to an old plantation she remembered. Putting them off track, they end up on a dirt road in Georgia where the grandmother realizes but does not say that they are in the wrong spot. After having a car accident, they family ends up in a ditch in the middle of nowhere. Little by little, each character is taken into the woods and do not return. In the woods is where the story ends, where the Misfit and his gang members ultimately kill the whole family.The characters and the setting are both important, and they come together to creat e irony that is shown throughout the whole story. At the beginning of the story, the grandmother tells us The Misfit is aloose from the Federal Pen and headed towards Florida (405) this being her reasoning for not wanting to go to Florida. Little did they know, along the way, the grandmother would get them lost and lead them right into the Misfits path. Before coming intact with the Misfit, the grandmother had nothing good to say about him and judged him without knowing the slightest thing about him.Not until later, when coming face to face with him, she automatically changed her tone when she knew that her life was in jeopardy. Another example of irony would be dealing with the cat. At first, the cat was not supposed to come along on the trip. With the grandmother being so hardheaded, she brought the cat along anyways. The cat jumped up, which is when the accident happened. If the grandmother had just done as Bailey said and left the cat, then the accident may not have ever happene d. After analyzing the characters, setting, and irony of A Good Man is Hard to Find, we see how these elements are essential for this story.We can see how certain behaviors of certain characters, like the Grandmother, lead to dangerous circumstances. If only the Grandmother would not have thought she was superior and had to have everything her way, the entire ruckus would not have happened. Work Cited Bethea Arthur F. OConnors A GOOD MAN IS HARD TO FIND. Explicator 64. 4 (2006) 246-249. Academic Search Premier. Web. 18 Feb. 2013 OConnor, Flannery. A Good Man is Hard to Find. Literature 8th ed. Eds Laurie Kirszner and Stephen Mandell. BostonWadsworth, 2013. 599-621. Print.