: The grandmother attempts to persuade her son, Bailey, and his better half to take a tour of the family

to east Tennessee rather than Florida. She brings up the newspaper’s headline about the criminal the
Misfit is loose from the Federal Pen and headed toward Florida and adds that the kids have effectively
been there. John Wesley, eight years of age, proposes that the grandmother remains at home, and his
sister, June Star, says that his grandmother could never do that.

So the next day all of them set off for the tour, this time what Grandmother did, she dressed in such a
way that if there was an accident people would recognize her as a Southern lady. Grandmother also
took her favorite cat Pitty Sing in the basket of the car because Grandmother would not leave her cat
alone at home. This time his grandson John Wesley suddenly said that he does not like Georgia. So John
Wesley was scolded by their grandmother for insulting her own state. While the car was moving,
Grandmother was showing their scenery and reminiscing about the days she left behind. She said that in
those days children respected their own state as much as they respected their parents. At the point
when they pass a cotton field, she says there are graves in it that had a place with the plantation and
jokes that the plantation has “Gone with the Wind”. In fact, she forgot that it was not here that showed
the wrong scenario. Again grandmother began to tell more stories of her past, admiring her when she
was Maiden, telling her how many great people had come to her or called her. Mr. A great man named
Teagarden used to bring watermelon for her every day. In the middle of the conversation, her
granddaughter June Star said that she would never marry a person who only brings a watermelon on
Saturday. Grandmother said he was a gentleman and had brought Coca-Cola for her too when it first
came out. This gentleman died just a few years ago and was very wealthy.

The car stopped in front of a restaurant where barbecue sandwiches are made. When they came here,
everyone in the family sat down to eat. The children started jumping. Restaurant owner Red Sammy
kept talking to them, and his wife joined in. Meanwhile, leaning over the counter, Red Sammy’s wife
asked to theme mean to June Star (little girl) “Ain’t she cute?” “Would you like to come to be my little
girl? ”

“No I certainly wouldn’t,” said June Star. “I wouldn’t live in a broken-down place like this for a minion
buck! ” and she ran back to the table.

“Ain’t she cute?” June Star’s mother repeated, stretching her mouth politely.

“Aren’t you ashamed?” hissed the grandmother.

The car started moving again. Grandmother continued to tell the story of grandchildren, showing a new
scenario. Outside of Toomsboro she woke up and reviewed a house that she had visited in this
neighborhood once when she was a maiden. She said the house had six white segments across the front
and that there was a road of oaks paving the way to it and two minimal wooden lattice arbors on one or
the other side in front where you plunked down with admirer after a walk around the garden. This time
the child became very curious and anxious to discover this house. They yelled at his father to stop the
car. Because the car had to turn and go towards the wood house. Although his father did not want to
stop the car because the road was not good. John Wesley was repeatedly kicking her in the back of the
seat, causing her to have trouble driving. Annoyed at one point, Bailey stopped the car. Going to the
house to discover the secret panel of this house. But the road was bad and And happened on the way
car accidents. The car overturned in the breakdown, but John Wesley and June Star were unharmed and
screamed in happily. When Grandmother saw that place only a few feet later but that house was not
there, she realized that this house was actually Tennessee, not in Georgia. This time he decided not to
tell anyone this matter.

Now that their car was broken down, they waited for another car to arrive. Suddenly they saw a car
coming towards them at a very slow, three people in the car. They got out of the car with two guns in
their hands. They were trying to figure out how to fix the car. Suddenly she mixed to her feet and stood
gazing. “You’re The Misfit! “Grandmother said,” I remembered you immediately! “

“Yes,” the man said, grinning somewhat as though he were satisfied despite himself to be known, “yet it
would have been exceptional for every one of you, woman, in case you hadn’t recognized me”. “the
Misfit said”

The Misfit’s two men, Bobby Lee and Hiram, took Bailey and John Wesley away into the woods, and
shots were heard, followed by his wife and child into the woods, and shots were heard. Grandmother
was left alone, This time Grandmother told Misfit that you can be like my son. “Why are you one of my
children? The Misfit sprang back as though a snake had messed with him and shot her multiple times
through the chest and said “She would have been a good woman,” if it had been somebody there to
shoot her every minute of her life.”

A good man is hard to find summary analysis

A good man is hard to find analysis

A good man is hard to find analysis

“A Good Man is Hard to Find,” the short story by Flannery O’Connor.

This is a disturbing short story because nobody really a hero. There’s no one to root for; everybody’s bad.
We feel a little bit for the grandmother because we see the story mostly through her eyes, but actually,
we don’t like her much either because she’s a bit of a loudmouth, she’s quite judgemental. The
grandmother was pretty superficial. She just wanted her to be a lady to prevent the misfit from killing
her, and she thinks that somehow he’ll spare her just because she’s a lady. So there’s nobody to really
root for and that makes us think that Flannery O’Connor is presenting us with a bit of a puzzle, a moral
puzzle: Who is right in this story? Is anyone right? If no is right, then where is rightness? Is it right that
they all die?

Is the misfit right about the grandmother when he says somebody should have shot her every day of her
life? He’s obviously disgusted with her. He is tired of her mouthing off and just talking a lot. There’s very
little redemption in this story. Maybe the grandmother discovers something at the very end. When she’s
about to be killed, she says, “Oh, you could be my child.” So that implies a little bit of deeper awareness
about this murderer, but that is the tiny little bit of growth. Some people say that the children and the
mother and father come together as a family, that they actually bond more and join more in this
moment of death than they ever have before because we see that at the home they are disconnected.
They’re argumentative. They insult each other, and then when they’re on the road, they’re grumpy.

A good man is hard to find summary analysis, we can find that Grandma wants to save herself by saying
that the Misfit can be her son, that is, one of her family, but on the other hand, the one who has killed
her own family wants to make her one of her family, but Grandmother wants to save herself. So the
issue of how selfish human grace makes people is revealed here. Again the Misfit is best for him not
overall because he likes as he wants, according to the Misfit, he has not signed any document that he is
obliged to do it, so according to him what he does is out of his own favor, no grace works in his court
here, he doesn’t even care about God. So here Misfit is emphasizing his own goodness, he is avoiding
the overall goodness, that is, he is a murderer, a madman.

A Good Man Is Hard to Find Themes

The actual themes in “A Good Man is Hard to Find” are searching grace, prejudice, and family.

Searching grace: In some situations, We have no choice but to seek grace instead of restraint which is
well understood by grandmother

Prejudice: Grandmother has shown baseless advance message and how foolish the present is!.

Here the identity of prejudice is found.

Family: It is based on the past of how family ties work with each other, as Grandmother wanted to make
the Misfit one of her family members in order to survive on her own, on the other hand, her actual
family died.

+++++

Flannery O'Connor

Thanks for the A2A.

I'll have to say that my personal opinion may not match, point by point, with the three most dominant
interpretations of the short-story and O' Connors own intentions - that is, regarding the grandmothers
final gesture towards The Misfit and sin as the distorter of one's true identity.

So, if you want to know her, O'Connor' s, "true" intention, without going in to further speculation, I'd say
that that is it: sin as a distorter of one's true identity and self-recognition as one's - possibility of - true
redemption.

Now, the sin in this short-story is pride - and I believe it to be a sin of both the grandmother and The
Misfit. You can see it in the end in how he, The Misfit, chastises one of his men - what I mean by this is
that he had, even if minor, a change of heart in regards to his bravado as a criminal - killing was no more
just some good fun to be had.
So, pride.

The grandmother would like to think of herself as a lady with a good notion of what the world is and also
as a good judge of character - viz, she likes to think that class and wealth are synonymous with a
person's and/or its life's worth, that she knows what makes a man a criminal, that she also knows what
makes her son and grandchildren' s times worse than hers, etc, etc - you know: the old fart logic.

Then enters The Misfit, one who is - in the grandmothers words - not of common blood.

The Misfit, taking away all her pretences - by separating her from her family, by telling her his own story
and imparting his own ideas on Christ while threatening her life and thus making things all the more
urgent and to the bone -, has her face her true identity once alone with him. Also: mind the redemption
theme in christian theology, mind how it follows the theme of sin and mind her false/prideful identity as
a lady and not a mother and grandmother throughout the story and up until the end.

Once you sin there are only two things available to you: redemption or damnation.

What I mean is, being a mother and grandmother were simply accessory to her own self-image as a lady
and thus lastly, and this is my belief, aware of The Misfits own folly as she had become of hers, she tries
to be the mother she had failed to be to her son - whose shirt, you may remember, is by that time being
worn by The Misfit. So, having become aware of it all she tries for her life and soul to be what she hadn't
been. Yet, if not sinning, she still fails once more.

She fails, I believe, for three reasons that O'Connor may or may not have had in mind.

One is poetic justice. Poetic justice is important in a story. Mind Odysseus killing all of his wife's suitors
once he returns. Homer didn't write it down that way simply because they had been pestering her while
he was gone. In the end the slate had to be clean so the two could be one once more. Another reason,
that is similar to the first one, is symmetry. They are the antithesis of each other and face one another in
the end of the story as so to produce a synthesis. Lastly, the whole christian thematic that is played
throughout the story. Sin and redemption.
So, regarding redemption.

How to set one's own record straight, because, in the story, her son and grandchildren, already dead,
could no longer have her as the mother and grandmother she should have been and The Misfit could
never accept her as his own because of his own identity as both person and character. So he, The Misfit
by killing her plays half of her redemption; the first half being her, the grandmothers, own true attempt
at it. Things could no longer be set straight - her family was dead and she had nothing else to do and
come to grips with in life - as her life was through and, as she had become aware of her sin, her pardon,
since not by the hand of God, was to be delivered by one of his children. Thus she was offered death
because, and in line with what is the typical christian narrative style, things follow through from A to B.
There is no going back, there is only going forward and this is how you have to equate the sin vs
redemption dichotomy.

So let's say then that this is the main "message."

The secondary one is about the south and its own identity. Identity is a theme that can be worked from
different angles.

You may ask who or you may ask what was she.

Who was she? Mother, grandmother, lady, woman, child of God, a sack of flesh and blood and so
nothing but the sum of her impulses and personal history?

That is simply the angle of personal identity.

Now, in the story itself, and what can be read over it - that is, over the grandmother and The Misfit and
their final face-off - there is another angle.

What is she. Or better yet, what do both of them represent?

Both are southerners. She believes herself to be a lady of the Old South, that is, a sort of aristocrat, an
aristoi of southern blood. He, instead, is what he is: a southerner. Remember, as I said before, she tells
him that he is of uncommon blood, and he concurs.

So who is he, then?

A southerner, yes. But a different kind. He, like the South itself can not be defined, controlled, or better
yet: identified.

If the grandmother represents the identical and its sameness, The Misfit represents difference itself. The
damned, the cast, the marginal and so on. He, like the South itself, can not be reduced to a set of
similarities, laws and boundaries. The newspaper said he was bound for Florida, the grandmother
believed the newspaper and still he met that family far away from it.

So, what is the South? A set of states, histories, people and accents and belief systems, cuisines,
landscapes?

To someone outside of it the accents are similar and resolve the differences between things. But to a
southerner the accents are different. His name says it all really. The Misfit. Now, under the scope of this
angle, do you see why she was wrote as recognizing his uncommon blood, why she was wrote as
reaching for his face as if he was her son and wanting to embrace him so - that is, forgive him for his
wrongs as she would wish to be forgiven for hers?

She was something the South, in Flannery' s eyes, will always reject and he, The Misfit was the South.

++++++

Flannery O'Connor

I can only offer speculation here (of course). While I love this short story, I can't claim to understand it
fully.
O'Connor was a Southerner who liked to poke fun at the foibles of the South. For me, the key to this
story is the line "She would of been a good woman ... if it had been somebody there to shoot her every
minute of her life." The grandmother is racist and a false Christian (as in, she calls herself a Christian but
doesn't follow the actual teachings of Jesus Christ, who asked us to judge not lest we be judged in
Matthew 7). She gets mighty holy when her life is on the line, but before then, not so much.

One can take the title ironically: a good man, to the grandmother, is someone just like her, and a man of
that nature would not have shot her. Unfortunately for her, a good man is hard to find.

Just my two cents ...

+++++

Flannery O'Connor

A good man hard to find short story themes seeking grace. Writer Flannery O'Connor trying to say that
grace is not always favour with you. Sometimes it would be horrible than you never think. You saw
Grandmother trying to get grace to keep herself alive saying you would have been one of my child but
The Misfit was never convinced by the telling grace.

You may look at A Good Man is Hard to Find summary here