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Agoodmanishardtofindcorrect.pptmGood Man is Hard to find
Flannery O’Connor
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Good man is hard to find
Themes:
Sky and weather
Grace
Racism
Disgust with the world
Glorification of the past
Violence
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Good man is Hard to Find
The title of the story represents distrust of mankind. It comes from a conversation between the grandmother and Red Sammy and contradicts the Christianity of the grandmother. In the story’s beginning, the grandmother, her son, daughter-in-law, and grandchildren are all heading to Florida. The day before, the grandmother reads a newspaper article about an escaped criminal named Misfit. This is a foreshadowing of their future encounter with Misfit.
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The good man is Hard to Find
On their way to Florida, the grandmother reminisces about her childhood. She desperately wants the family to find an old plantation she remembers. This area of the story connects to nostalgia and glorification of the past. She discusses with Sammy how things are not like they were in the past, and now she is trying to remember an old plantation. O’Connor clearly says that the past is never as good as it is in one’s mind. And, of course, the past includes blacks understanding their place in society.
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He
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The Good Man is a Hard to Find
The grandmother notices a black man and judges him stereotypically. The grandmother is someone who is stuck in the past. The past impinging on the present is an important Southern Gothic trope.
The family is situating as extremely annoying. The children, June and Bailey, seem to have a disrespect for their elders. They are constantly making smart comments to their grandmother. Whether the reader likes the grandmother or not, there is a sense that the children owe her respect.
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A Good man is hard to find
There is a race to be more irritated with disrespect, loudness, and rudeness of the children or the casual racism of the grandmother.
The grandmother forces the family to go to a plantation she remembers in her youth. She also told the family of the stories involving the planation from her youth. This era of nostalgia is one of the things that O’Connor is critiquing. She illustrates that the reverence of the past can be a problem in moving forward in the future. There are good things about going back to the past
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A Good man is hard to find
Many people lean toward the past to learn how to engage with the future. But O’Connor says you can become entrapped by it and not move on. The Grandmother wants to see the South in a particular way and blacks in a submissive position. She wants to remember the past when she felt at least her life was better. Additionally, going off the path to see the plantation ultimately leads to the family’s death.
They eventually go to a tavern; there, the grandmother speaks to Red Sammy, and they talk about the past and the misfit.
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A good man is hard to find
The misfit is a murderer who is out on the loose. The grandchildren and the grandmother look at the paper and comment about his escape. The grandchildren feel if they come up against him, they will be tearing him down. O’Connor is foreshadowing what is to come within the story by bringing up the misfit before they start on their trip. The grandmother also uses the story about him to scare the grandchildren.
Moving back to the grandmother’s discussion with Red Sammy, we see that the discussion veers from nostalgia to the misfit.
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A good man is hard to find
Their discussion about the Misfit is in passing, but Red Sammy nods to the story’s title when he ends their discussion by saying a good man is hard to find. One aspect of this sentence is that they probably have met decent men, but their judges and prejudices have made it impossible for good men. This will become more ironic after the Grandmother’s fateful meeting with the misfit.
The diversion of seeing the lost plantation ultimately causes the family to drive into a ditch and get the car stuck. This fateful turn of events will lead them straight to the misfit.
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Good man is hard to find
The family starts to try to control the situation and get away from the Misfit, but this will begin the methodical killing of the family. The grandmother would hear the killing of her family in the woods. All she could do was try to save her own life. She sits with him and tells him that he is and can be a good man. But he constantly says that he is not a good man. Now, after the reader knows that he might be allowing the family to be killed one thinks well he is of course not good. But we find out that the label was given to him before he did anything or committed in crime.
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A good man is hard to find
When the Misfit and the men who were with him stop to try and help the family, the grandmother looks at the misfit as if trying to place him. The family is in this position because the grandmother lied about the plantation and had hidden a cat in the car. Now they were unknowingly face to face with a murderer. The grandmother will be bargaining for her life at this point in the story. The grandmother’s recognition is her fatal mistake. Not only her recognition but her speaking it out loud. O’Connor makes it seem like the misfit was trying to do a good deed until he was recognized as a criminal.
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Good Man is hard to find
The Misfit explained, “but I ain't the worst in the world neither. My daddy said I was a different breed of dog from my brothers and sisters. 'You know,' Daddy said, 'it's some that can live their whole life out without asking about it and it's others has to know why it is, and this boy is one of the latters. He's going to be into everything!’ (O’Connor)” This quote is important because it gives a window into the misfit’s mind. Clearly, the misfit was an inquisitive and smart child, but his family did not welcome this and made him feel like an oddity.
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A good man is a hard to find
As the grandmother is trying to save her life, the misfit goes further and further back into his childhood. The grandmother asks the misfit if he prays. Misfit dismisses this idea and further tells his story. He talks about his time as a gospel singer. Then he ends up in jail but does not say how he got there. He claims he was not a bad boy, but somehow, he was put in jail. O’Connor gives the reader the idea that, more than likely, the punishment did not fit the crime and that no one came into the misfit’s life who really cared about him.
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Good man is hard to find
The grandmother said to the misfit that is when he should have started to pray. The misfit said, “Turn to the right, it was a wall," The Misfit said, looking up again at the cloudless sky. "Turn to the left, it was a wall. Look up it was a ceiling, look down it was a floor. I forget what I done, lady. I set there and set there, trying to remember what it was I done and I ain't recalled it to this day. Once in a while, I would think it was coming to me, but it never come. (O’Connor). O’Connor is clearly illustrating with the passage from Misfit how jail can make criminality worse.
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Good man is hard to find
Instead of rehabilitating, many come out with an even greater sense of not belonging and an extreme dislike of humanity. Because he did not know why he was in jail, the grandmother said maybe it was a mistake. He said no, it wasn’t because they had papers on him.
The grandmother says that he must have stolen something. He says he did not, but the doctor in the jail said he killed his daddy. But he knows that his father died from the epidemic of the flu, so he could not have killed his daddy.
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Good man is hard to find
O’Connor is clearly dealing with the idea of people unjustly going to jail. As the reader, we don’t know if he did anything or was railroaded. But O’Connor is clearly saying he did not kill his father and that the criminal justice system created a murderer. The grandmother keeps offering prayer as what he needs to help him in his distressing times. But the misfit again does not buy it.
The grandmother tells him that Jesus will help him, but the misfit says he is doing fine by himself.
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A good man is hard to find
The misfit responds, “Jesus shown everything off balance. It was the same case with Him as with me except He hadn't committed any crime, and they could prove I had committed one because they had the papers on me. Of course," he said, "they never shown me my papers. That's why I sign myself now. I said long ago, you get you a 12 signature and sign everything you do and keep a copy of it. Then you'll know what you done and you can hold up the crime to the punishment and see do they match and in the end you'll have something to prove you ain't been treated right. I call myself The Misfit," he said, "because I can't make what all I done wrong fit what all I gone through in punishment” (O’Connor).
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Good man is hard to find
With this passage, O’Connor is making an analogy by comparing Jesus to the misfit. The misfit says that Jesus messed up justice because he allowed himself to be punished for a crime he did not commit. The misfit sees himself as a person who has also been wronged by the judicial system. He feels he was imprisoned because people created papers on him. The grandmother is getting to her breaking point. She tells him that she knows he has good blood and Jesus loves him. The misfit goes on to discuss his grievances with Jesus.
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A good man is hard to find
The misfit said, “"Jesus was the only One that ever raised the dead," The Misfit continued, "and He shouldn't have done it. He shown everything off balance. If He did what He said, then it's nothing for you to do but thow away everything and follow Him, and if He didn't, then it's nothing for you to do but enjoy the few minutes you got left the best way you can-by killing somebody or burning down his house or doing some other meanness to him. No pleasure but meanness” (O’Connor). The misfit feels like Jesus put everything off balance because he gave humanity only two choices.
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Good man is a hard man to find
Either you give up everything and follow Jesus or you don’t and just continue your path to hell. Interestingly enough, the misfit is not a disbeliever; he wants to believe in God and Jesus but feels like they gave humanity a road that is very hard to stick to. He goes on to say he wasn’t there when Jesus was around, and he wishes he had because then he could be a firm believer which he wants to be.
At this moment, the grandmother looks at him and says he could have been her son. She says, “why you are one of my babies. One of my own children”(O’Connor).
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A good man is hard to fine
This is the heart of the story. She sees this man and begins to see humanity. We are all connected, and if society saw this, we could help those who are in trouble before they become a predator to society. Even though she will die, before she dies, she gets grace from God. O’Connor illustrates that grace from god is the act of seeing everyone as a child of God. She sees this finally.
Her death comes because she goes to touch the misfit. He cannot deal with someone extending any love or care for him.
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A good man is hard to find
From the moment he touches, he cannot take and shoots her dead. The shooting seems to be just a reaction to a reaction he cannot take. The grandmother realizes that she is part of society and that society is responsible for who Misfit became.
O’Connor was catholic, and her strong Catholic faith influences her work.
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