Foreshadowing is one of the most important techniques used by O’Connor in her story A Good Man Is Hard to Find. There are two aims of using this technique namely the suspense and preparing the reader for the events which happen further on. The author gives her readers the hint of an evitable ending describing the characters and the events connected with them mentioning the last place of the visit of the main characters. The author manages to pass the idea of the spiritual lack inherent in her characters which results in a bloody end.
The grandmother discusses the deplorable consequences of Misfit’s way of life not paying attention to her activities which foreshadow the approaching end. One of the most obvious foreshadowings of the grandmother’s ending is the description of her appearance when she goes to Florida: “…a navy blue straw sailor hat with a bunch of white violets on the brim and a navy blue dress with a small white dot in the print. Her collars and cuffs were white organdy trimmed with lace and at her neckline she had pinned a purple spray of cloth violets containing a sachet” (O’Connor, p. 251). It should be taken into account, that people usually are dressed in their best clothes and carry flowers during the funeral. The grandmother doesn’t need to put on the best clothes when she is going on the trip.
Another place of foreshadowing the doom of the family is when the family “…passed a large cotton field with five or six graves fenced in the middle of it, like a small island” (O’Connor, p. 251). The family consists of five adults and one baby which is a total is six as the number of graves. These words prepare the reader for the inevitable ending of the main characters. Another bright indicator of the family’s death is the Misfit’s arrival in “…a big black battered hearse-like automobile” (O’Connor, p. 254). The comparison of his automobile with the hearse stresses the approach of death to the whole family. Reading such imageries the reader begins subconsciously to think about something bad that must happen shortly. Another interesting place that attracts our attention is Misfit’s answer to the grandmother’s question: “What did you do to get sent to the penitentiary that first time?”. He says: “Turn to the right, it was a wall. Turn to the left, it was a wall. Look up it was a ceiling; look down it was a floor” (O’Connor, p. 256). An attentive reader pays attention to this description as far as it resembles the description of the jail cell. The comparison to the jail cell foreshadows Misfit’s confinement after he has killed the family or it applies to a tight grave where the whole family will be short. When the grandmother says Misfit to pray and asks for Jesus’ absolution, he says: “Yes’m, it was the same case with Him [Jesus] as with me except He hadn’t committed any crime and they could prove I had committed one”(O’Connor, p. 257). This statement provides the resemblance of the grandmother with Jesus who did not do any evil to the people but he was not protected from death. These words foreshadow the grandmother’s murder that Misfit is going to commit.
O’Connor using foreshadowing prepares the reader to the end of the story on the one hand and intensifies the suspense on the other hand. Not every reader pays attention to such hidden symbols of the work nevertheless the dark atmosphere makes the reader subconsciously prepared for the death of the main characters. O’Connor’s foreshadowing images are not so evident so as they do not prevent the reader to be surprised at the end of the story.
Works Cited
O’Connor, Flannery. “A Good Man Is Hard to Find”. The World Closest to Us: Me and You. UK: Children’s Books, 2006. 250-257. Print.