Selfishness and individualism are the two main themes of “A Good Man is Hard to Find.” In essence, the grandmother’s determination to fulfill her own selfish goals leads to the demise of her entire family as well as her own life. This essay examines the grandmother and the Misfit, characters who stand in for selfishness and individualism, and includes exposition of O’Connor’s literary devices.
The strident individualism that propels the grandmother’s fateful actions manifests itself squarely in the character of The Misfit. The Misfit, like the grandmother, focuses exclusively on himself and employs the other people around him as pawns meant to achieve his own selfish needs and wants (Hooten 198). The objectification of others – in the case of the grandmother this means the objectification of her own family – results in an overall loss of cohesiveness, wherein “community holds no value” (Hooten 198). Set adrift, peripatetic and aimlessly moving from one empty community to another, “The Misfit exemplifies this void [as] the lost individual who relates to the community through constantly shifting roles” (Hooten 198). Consequently, it is possible to comprehend the characterization of the Misfit as the manifestation of selfishness.
Throughout the story, O’Connor also makes use of figurative language. In the phrase “…the dust coated trees looking down on them,” she employs personification (O’Connor 193). Where no one else lived save them and only trees, it was to strengthen those relationships. By donning a layer of dust, the trees, which are inanimate objects, become lively. Then, as the trees looked down on them, they understood that it was obviously impossible.
All other characters are given names by O’Connor, but the grandmother, who plays the primary role, is simply identified by role. The grandmother’s personality emerges quickly and deeply despite having no name; she is preoccupied with decorum and the importance of being a lady, fascinated with looks, and tied to an ambiguous Southern past. The grandmother wears a “navy blue straw sailor hat,” “collars and cuffs [that] were white organdy trimmed with lace,” and a “purple spray of cloth violets containing a sachet” that O’Connor describes as accessories that she pins at her neckline so that “in case of an accident, anyone seeing her dead on the highway would know at once that she was a lady” (O’Connor 187). This characters despite being the drive force for the story is seen as minuscule due to the nature of her persona.
The grandmother exhibits selfish behavior by purposefully manipulating her family for her personal ends, with no remorse or repercussions. Even though Bailey has specifically forbidden the cat from sharing the motel room with them, she purposefully misleads her son Bailey about her cat, Pitty Sing, which she smuggles into the car underneath her “big black valise that looked like the head of a hippopotamus” (O’Connor 186). After the automobile crash and subsequent run-in with The Misfit, Pitty Sing subsequently causes the deaths of the entire family.
Flannery O’Connor’s worry that selfishness and rabid individuality throw people apart and encourage the marginalization of individuals like The Misfit is reflected in the short tale A Good Man is Hard to Find. With the exception of their social viability, the grandmother’s character and that of The Misfit have very nothing in common. Both continue to be extremely egotistical individuals who would lie, steal, manipulate, and even kill in order to further their own goals. This selfishness and independence clash at a catastrophic point in Flannery O’Connor’s hands and cause the deaths of five innocent individuals. Even worse, one of their own is responsible for the murder.
Work Cited
O’Connor, Flannery. “A Good Man Is Hard to Find. Avon Book Of Modern Writing.” Ed. William Phillips. New York: Avon Publication, 1953, 186-199. Web
Hooten, Jessica. “Individualism in O’Connor’s A Good Man is Hard to Find.” The Explicator 66.4 (2008): 197-198. Web