"A Good Man Is Hard To Find" by Flannery OConnor. A Literary Analysis

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 Gonzalez

ENC 1102 – 151961

19 March 2012

A Good Man Is Hard To Find

A Literary Analysis

One of O'Connor's most widely read stories "A Good Man is Hard to Find" written in 1953, without a doubt is also her most shocking. Yet is it through the story's disturbing ending that O'Connor raises fundamental questions about good and evil, morality and immorality, faith and doubt, and the particularly Southern "binaries" of black and white and Southern history and progress (Link 126).

Ever since the beginning of time, mankind has been searching for a higher power that will guide them through life, and show them the “true way”. Christianity is the largest religion in Western Society, and it has functioned as a guiding rule, helping Christians for centuries to decide what is right or wrong (Bethea 246).

In Flannery O’Connor’s short story “A Good Man Is Hard To Find” this theme is brought up in a rather controversial way: how should you really act as a righteous Christian, and is everything as black or white as it first may seem? According to Bryant, this is being pushed to the extreme in O’Connor’s work, where she makes it fully clear that everybody can change and eventually reach salvation, even though some people must encounter the most extreme situations, in this case death, to reach enlightenment. In the very beginning of the story, we get to see one of the grandmother’s basic traits; she is manipulative, and she shows no hesitation when it comes to convince people into doing what she wants them to do (301).

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As the story develops, The Grandmother starts complaining about going on a road trip to Florida; she would rather visit friends in east Tennessee. She worries aloud to the rest of the family, Bailey; her son, Bailey’s wife, June Star and John Wesley; their children, and the baby, about The Misfit whom she has been reading about in the newspaper. The Misfit is a serial killer who has escaped from the Federal Penitentiary and is on the loose (Link 137).

The title of the story, "A Good Man Is Hard to Find", echoes Red Sammy Butts in his conversation with ...

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