Critique Paper
Mosquea 1
Sebastian Mosquea
Professor O’Connor
ENG 102 EL
20 September 2020
The Finding of a Good Man
Flannery O’Connor’s short story, “A Good Man is Hard to Find” is one of the most confusing and disturbing and yet interesting pieces of work. It is a story that both the author and the majority of its readers have a different interpretation of the same. “A Good Man is Hard to Find” is a story about a family who is convinced by the Grandmother to visit East Tennessee instead of Florida for vacation. As they were passing Georgia to arrive at East Tennessee, the family had an accident in the woods. Shortly after, a killer named the Misfit met the family and killed the entire family with his friends. The intentions of the author are often misunderstood in the current setting. Despite the multiple interpretations of the story, O’Connor displays different themes and qualifies to create an interesting noir. The definition of a ‘good man’ is illusory, as the protagonist gave a mixed reference to what warrants a person to be good. That leads to different viewpoints of morality. Through the Grandmother, it is evident that morality, selfishness, and grace are the main issues that the author wanted to put across.
From the onset of the story, the grandmother is portraying a selfish personality. The family wants to visit Florida, but she convinces her son and the entire family to go to Tennessee (O’Connor 2). She led her family to an unknown destination that would later lead to their death due to her quest for an imaginary mansion. Having known that the house she was looking for was found in a different state, she still insisted that they looked for it. When it reached a time of killing her, Grandma pleaded to the Misfit to spare her life. It appears that she only cared for herself. Sik termed her actions as self-centered (232). Apart from selfishness, the Grandmother was corrupt and wicked.
A character’s judgement can be deemed as unreliable when the character is corrupt and wicked like the Grandmother. This allows for two distinct perspectives of morality to occur between two of the main characters. It is naive for someone to conclude that the Misfit was immoral, while the grandmother was moral. In describing what is good, the grandmother tells her son that she was a good man when he let strangers charge their gasoline (O’Connor 10). In this case, Red Sam was gullible, and the grandmother terms it as good. When pleading with the Misfit not to be killed, she called him a good man. “I know you’re a good man. You don’t look a bit like you have common blood. I know you must come from nice people!” (O’Connor 41). If both Red Sam and the Misfit were good men, then really, a good man is hard to find. In this case, being good does not mean morals but rather being consistent. According to Bonney, the Misfit is likened to Christ, who is mandated to ask morally serious questions (347).
Although it is hidden, the main reason O’Connor wrote the story was to display a theme of grace. It is, however, hard to pinpoint given the evilness in the story. O’Connor herself noted that she wanted readers to see the grandmother as an agent of grace as opposed to evil (Ochshorn 297). Both the grandmother and the Misfit received grace in the end, though they were both not saints. When the grandmother realized that she was about to be killed, she came back to her senses and called the Misfit her son. Just before her death, she sees life from a different perspective. When the grandmother was dead, the Misfit was not pleased. “…Misfit’s eyes were red-rimmed and pale and defenseless-looking.” When Bobby said it was fun killing her, the Misfit said, “Shut Up, It is no real pleasure in life” (O’Connor 46).
Flannery O’Connor displays that a good man is hard to find. Finding a complete person with every desired virtue is impossible. The world is filled with self-centered people who pursue their happiness. Despite finding common ground on what is good, kindness to each other forms the basis of morality. The bottom line is that every evil person can still find grace when one surrenders to the creator.
Works Cited
Bonney, William. "The Moral Structure Of Flannery O'connor's A Good Man Is". Ebscohost, vol 27, no. 3, 1990, http://connection.ebscohost.com/c/literary-criticism/9705041482/moral-structure-flannery-oconnors-good-man-is. Accessed 20 Sept 2020.
Ochshorn, Kathleen. "A Cloak Of Grace: Contradictions In 'A Good Man Is Hard To Find'". Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism, Janet Witalec, 2003, Accessed 20 Sept 2020.
O'Connor, Flannery. A Good Man Is Hard To Find. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1977.
Sik Suh, Kang. "The Study On The Human Nature Of 'Good Man' In 『Laotzu』". KOREAN ELEMENTARY MORAL EDUCATION SOCIETY, null, no. 23, 2007, pp. 225-246. Korean Elementary Moral Education Society, doi:10.17282/ethics.2007..23.225.