I have a literature paper due tomorrow is and I have a page and 3/4ths But I need 5

Cheaton 2

Devron Cheaton

Intro to Literature

Mr. Trimm

November 20, 2017

Morality and Divine Grace in “A Good Man is Hard to Find”

In the short story by Flannery O’Connor, “A Good Man is Hard to Find”, O’Connor is using the Grandmother’s characterization to present a critique of old southern arguments. The Grandmother in this short story has a big representation of trying to portray authority from the beginning of the story to the end. Even when the mother and father remains quiet to allow her to have her way and give her the respect she demand; the grandmother still abuses them by continuously manipulating them and the people they come into contact with. That was until they came into contact with the one person she feared.

The grandmother attempts to manipulate everyone she encounters despite her intentions of her concepts and morals for better or worse. Despite the stress that the grandmother has put on everyone in this story everyone still allows her to talk freely, even when she goes to disrespect almost everyone and everything she see. From the time, the trip begins, to the time the trip came to an end the grandmother felt like everything had to go her way or she had to put her last touch on what the family had planned. When the narrator attempts to describe the grandmother, he comes out strong with disguising that she’s a bitch or the grandmother who likes to nag all the time. Throughout; the plot the grandmother show that she is everything that the narrator portrays her to be, seeing that she never let up on anything. Starting the story, she nags about how the family could have went anywhere but Florida. This is just the beginning of what she has in store for the family who has no idea the kind of trouble the mother has in store for them. The father and mother of June Star and John Wesley are just going along with everything the grandmother has to say because it seems like they do not want anything to do with her. It seems as if they are just trying to respect her as an elder and as a mother. Even though they talked, little June Star and John Wesley talked a lot, some of the things they said the grandmother did not agree with one being, “Let's go through Georgia fast so we won't have to look at it much," John Wesley said.” () this didn’t sit well with her because she felt very disrespected. As the family got into the car to leave the next day she still was trying to give the family a different perspective of why they should not go to Florida.

The trip starts off wrong because the first thing she do is insults a young boy that is in desperately in need of help and instead of her giving encouraging words she says, “He probably don’t have any,” the grandmother explained. “Little niggers in the country don’t have things like we do. If I could paint, I’d paint that picture,” she said.” (470) Instead of the grandmother giving the children a better background of why the little boy didn’t have on any clothes she goes to the term southerners would use the most “nigger”. This is one where the children don’t know what to think of the young boy not being able to wear any bridges. As they are driving the grandmother notices something that makes her reminisce about her past. She pointed out the plantation that used to be on some land not because she could reminisce but so she could point out the cemetery that is housed there.

O’connor, Flannery. A Good Man is Hard to Find. The NortonmIntroduction to Literature. Shorter 12th ed. Ed. Kelly J. Mays. New York: Norton, 2016. 470-481. Print.