A Good Man Is Hard to Find is a short story written by Flannery O’Connor. The narrative describes a family journey that ended up with the violent murder of all its members by the gang of a prisoner in escape with the nickname The Misfit. The most contradictory character of O’Connor’s story is the grandmother, who is Bailey’s mother. There are numerous interpretations of the final dialogue between her and The Misfit and the reasons for her attempt to touch the murderer. The current essay argues that O’Connor’s short story A Good Man Is Hard to Find shows the moment of enlightenment and comprehension of simple truths by the grandmother that occurred just before she was killed.
First of all, I would like to describe the personality of the protagonist, the grandmother, at the beginning of the story. The tragedy happened because she “was seizing at every chance to change Bailey’s mind” about the destination of the summer vacation (O’Connor 3). She does not want to go to Florida because she wants to see her friends in East Tennessee. Ironically, one of the pressing arguments against the trip to Florid was an article in the newspaper that informs that the murderer The Misfit last time was seen exactly there (O’Connor 3). Therefore, it might be inferred that the life of five people and the grandmother herself were tragically cut short because of the unwillingness to make concessions to the son. What is more, she did not want to leave a cat alone, and, afterward, it was her cat that made Bailey lose control of the car (O’Connor 4). And, once again, it was the grandmother who attracted the attention of The Misfit’s car (O’Connor 10). To sum up, the cause of Bailey’s family’s mishap lies in the selfish behavior of his mother.
Nevertheless, it could be noticed that by the end of the story, the grandmother transformed into a person full of compassion. The comprehension that death is imminent made the old lady think of God and divine justice and try to guide the escaped criminal to the right path proclaimed in the Gospel. She wanted The Misfit to pray and to make him believe that he is an inherently good person unable to commit a crime (O’Connor 15). However, her attempts were futile and even made The Misfit more furious and willing to kill the lady.
At this point, it should be noted it is possible to argue that the grandmother tried to discuss God and the issue of good and evil because she feared an inexorably impending death. One possible point of view is that she has undergone no transformation and remains selfish until the last sign. This interpretation is reasonable because she never asked to save the lives of her son, daughter-in-law, and grandchildren. The only thing she worried about was her well-being. Additionally, in the dialogue with the prisoner, she repeated numerous times that he was too good to kill the old lady (O’Connor 15). This phrase sounds just as if the core feature that characterizes “goodness” was the inability to shoot her.
Still, it seems that such an interpretation of the end of A Good Man Is Hard to Find lacks an in-depth understanding of the protagonist’s actions. Firstly, there is something Biblical in the fact that Bailey’s mother suggested The Misfit take a shirt from her dead son’s suitcase (O’Connor 15). The Gospel says that it is good to share with those in need and be open to other people’s worries and problems. In this context, the phrase that deserves particular attention is the grandmother’s “Why you’re one of my babies. You’re one of my own children!” (O’Connor 16). This phrase shows that she realizes that all people have the same origins and could be called relatives because of the common father, God. Even though she began to deny religious miracles such as the resurrection of Lazarus, she tried to save at least one lost soul.
In the conclusion of the essay, it should be mentioned that the grandmother’s touch of The Misfit might be explained as a gesture of a distraught woman who saw the murderer in the shirt of her killed son. However, I believe that O’Connor’s short story is not only full of irony, which is a separate topic for discussion, but also full of references to the biblical motifs. For example, three is a divine number, and this number appears all over the story. More precisely, before the departure, the grandmother says that she does not want to leave her cat alone for three days. Then, the family consists of three children and three adults. Finally, The Misfit shoots three times in the grandmother’s chest. This way, it could be argued that the example of the grandmother shows that though the divine signs are everywhere, no one thinks of God until the very last minute when it becomes too late to change something.
Work Cited
O’Connor, Flannery. A Good Man Is Hard To Find and Other Stories. A Harvest/HBJ Book. 1955.