“She would have been a good woman,” The Misfit said, “if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life.” – Flannery O’ Connor.
Literature has been a source of knowledge and a means for the author to convey the moods and problems of the time in which it was written. Hence, of particular interest for this scientific paper is the work of Flannery O’Connor entitled “A good man is hard to find.” This story is among the most outstanding works of the author and is a valuable subject for research, as it presents several topics for analysis at once. This research paper focuses on the consideration of the theme of morality and incorrect principles in the work of Flannery O’Connor. It will help understand the meaning the author laid in her work and what problem she wanted to pay attention to.
The story tells how a family decided to go on a family trip to Florida. However, the grandmother is afraid of the escaped group of criminals and offers to change the route. Having gone on the initial journey, an older woman begins to remember her past and mistakenly assumes that there is an old plantation not far from the place where the route took place. She persuades the family to turn there and all the passengers of that car, without knowing it yet, set off on their last journey. After getting lost, the grandmother and family members meet the most dangerous group, killing them all.
Of particular interest to this story is the final part since it is the critical moment of the death of the main character. The author emphasizes the wrong moral guidelines and attitudes of the people of his time through the story’s main character. Research states that “she is eager to disguise herself as an advisable, elegant and well-educated lady, while virtually; she is an ultra-hypocritical, tyrannical and self-centered old woman” (Zhao, 2017, p. 2). Despite her age and extensive life experience, a woman thinks and cares only about her well-being. For example, because of her unwillingness to leave her pet alone, she confronts her son and takes him with her. It became the main reason for the accident and meeting with the killers in the future.
Before the fear of death, an older woman begins to look for an excuse for immoral actions carried out by a group of criminals. She is desperately trying to find reasons why a man holding a gun in front of her in her direction may be “a good man” (O’Connor, 2015). The story’s absurdity reaches when the woman begins to call the criminal her son, which enrages him, and he still kills the woman. Moreover, “the type of violence that O’Connor presents is observed as a shadow that permeated the quotidien of the social environment” (Campos & Franco, 2017, p. 216). The author’s description of the scene cannot be called oversaturated with artistic means, but it causes a strong sense of anxiety and indignation from the main character’s actions.
In addition to the moral decay of the main character, the author emphasizes what a strong transformation society has experienced in this regard. At the beginning of the work, the main protagonist says that there used to be more “good people,” and individuals were not even scared to leave the door open. However, the modern world has experienced significant moral changes presented in the dismissive and cruel attitude toward the value of someone else’s life. At the same time, even in the face of death, the older woman refuses to believe in what has become of society, which quite possibly conveys the author’s thoughts on this problem. O’Connor emphasizes the non-ideality and duplicity of the woman herself, who is ready to do anything to avoid death. In addition to trying to soften the criminal standing in front of her, she remembers God. This circumstance emphasizes how disdainfully and immorally people began to treat religious postulates and resort to them only in the hour of danger or difficulty.
This academic work was engaged in the study of such a literary element of the work of Flannery O’Connor, “A good man is hard to find” as a theme. Hence, the main topic highlighted in this work is the moral shift in society and its negative consequences. The author emphasizes that, with these changes, it is difficult to find a good person who would not have two-faced and selfish qualities and values someone else’s opinion, security, and especially life.
References
Campos, M. C. P., & Franco, A. G. B. (2017). Violence in “A good man is hard to find”: The faces of marginality, Gláuks, 7(1), 216-229.
O’Connor, F. (2015). A good man is hard to find: Short story. HarperCollins.
Zhao, Y. (2017). The absurd theme in “A good man is hard to find”. Francis Academic Press.