Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man Is Hard to Find

Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man Is Hard to Find

Focus on Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man Is Hard to Find,” and instead of starting with characters and working toward theme, we are going to take some of O’Connor’s prevalent themes, and we are going to find evidence of them in “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” by examining character–primarily, the grandmother and the Misfit.

Here are O’Connor’ prevalent themes:

– “The action of grace in territory held largely by the devil.” Human beings are
flawed and incomplete, and modern people in particular have traded the spiritual
dimension of their lives (Grace) for material comfort (Self-satisfaction).

– Violence and Redemption: The shock of violent encounters serves to revive a
recognition of spiritual urgency.

– Racism: racists, who are suffering from false pride, use “difference” to claim
superiority.

– Alienation: those who feel cut off, hungry, angry, “freakish,” are often seekers
who “see” more clearly than those who “belong”.

In order to accomplish our work this week, please read the entire short story, from beginning to end. Then, come back to this discussion board, and we will take parts of the story and analyze them together.

Following are the parts for analysis, along with questions for you to think about as you build your interpretation of the story. The questions show you how to interrogate a text and analyze and evaluate material to find an interpretation of what you’re reading.

Please respond to the questions for 2 excerpts (that’s 2 of the following threads) + the Final Questions for your participation for this week–thanks!

Final Question

Which of these themes do you see Flannery O’Connor working on in “A Good Man Is Hard to Find:”

 “The action of grace in territory held largely by the devil.” Human beings are
flawed and incomplete, and modern people in particular have traded the spiritual
dimension of their lives (Grace) for material comfort (Self-satisfaction).
 Violence and Redemption: The shock of violent encounters serves to revive a
recognition of spiritual urgency.
 Racism: racists, who are suffering from false pride, use “difference” to claim
superiority.
 Alienation: those who feel cut off, hungry, angry, “freakish,” are often seekers
who “see” more clearly than those who “belong”.

Give specific examples from the text of the story to back up your explication of how O’Connor works with her theme or themes.

Excerpt 6

Hiram and Bobby Lee returned from the woods and stood over the ditch, looking down at the grandmother who half sat and half lay in a puddle of blood with her legs crossed under her like a child’s and her face smiling up at the cloudless sky.
Without his glasses, The Misfit’s eyes were red-rimmed and pale and defenselesslooking. “Take her off and thow her where you thown the others,” he said, picking up the cat that was rubbing itself against his leg.
“She was a talker, wasn’t she?” Bobby Lee said, sliding down the ditch with a yodel.
“She would of been a good woman,” The Misfit said, “if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life.”

“Some fun!” Bobby Lee said.
“Shut up, Bobby Lee,” The Misfit said. “It’s no real pleasure in life.”

 How does the grandmother’s gesture relate to the Misfit’s comment that she might have been a good woman if she had someone “to shoot her every minute of her life?”
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Excerpt 5
Alone with The Misfit, the grandmother found that she had lost her voice. There was not a cloud in the sky nor any sun. There was nothing around her but woods. She wanted to tell him that he must pray. She opened and closed her mouth several times before anything came out. Finally she found herself saying, “Jesus. Jesus,” meaning, Jesus will help you, but the way she was saying it, it sounded as if she might be cursing.

“Yes’m, The Misfit said as if he agreed. “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 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.”

There was a piercing scream from the woods, followed closely by a pistol report. “Does it seem right to you, lady, that one is punished a heap and another ain’t punished at all?”

“Jesus!” the old lady cried. “You’ve got good blood! I know you wouldn’t shoot a lady! I know you come from nice people! Pray! Jesus, you ought not to shoot a lady. I’ll give you all the money I’ve got!”

“Lady,” The Misfit said, looking beyond her far into the woods, “there never was a body that give the undertaker a tip.”

There were two more pistol reports and the grandmother raised her head like a parched old turkey hen crying for water and called, “Bailey Boy, Bailey Boy!” as if her heart would break.

“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,” he said and his voice had become almost a snarl.

“Maybe He didn’t raise the dead,” the old lady mumbled, not knowing what she was saying and feeling so dizzy that she sank down in the ditch with her legs twisted under her.

“I wasn’t there so I can’t say He didn’t,” The Misfit said. “I wisht I had of been there,” he said, hitting the ground with his fist. “It ain’t right I wasn’t there because if I had of been there I would of known. Listen lady,” he said in a high voice, “if I had of been there I would of known and I wouldn’t be like I am now.” His voice seemed about to crack and the grandmother’s head cleared for an instant. She saw the man’s face twisted close to her own as if he were going to cry and she murmured, “Why you’re one of my babies. You’re one of my own children!” She reached out and touched him on the shoulder. The Misfit sprang back as if a snake had bitten him and shot her three times through the chest. Then he put his gun down on the ground and took off his glasses and began to clean them

 Comment on the two different interpretations we are given of the grandmother’s saying, “Jesus, Jesus.”
 What do you think of the Misfit’s explanation of his name, in relation to his comment that Jesus threw everything off balance?
 The grandmother reaches a point where she says that perhaps Jesus did not raise the dead. What has the Misfit said that might lead her to this doubt?
 Comment on the grandmother’s reaching out to the Misfit and his response. Does it seem believable that she might make this gesture? Can you offer any examples of how people change their behavior when they are faced with extreme situations?

Excerpt 4

You wouldn’t shoot a lady, would you?” the grandmother said and removed a clean handkerchief from her cuff and began to slap at her eyes with it.

The Misfit pointed the toe of his shoe into the ground and made a little hole and then covered it up again. “I would hate to have to,” he said.

“Listen,” the grandmother almost screamed, “I know you’re a good man. You don’t look a bit like you have common blood. I know you must come from nice people!”

“Yes mam,” he said, “finest people in the world.” When he smiled he showed a row of strong white teeth. “God never made a finer woman than my mother and my daddy’s heart was pure gold,” he said. The boy with the red sweat shirt had come around behind them and was standing with his gun at his hip. The Misfit squatted down on the ground. “Watch them children, Bobby Lee,” he said. “You know they make me nervous.” He looked at the six of them huddled together in front of him and he seemed to be embarrassed as if he couldn’t think of anything to say. “Ain’t a cloud in the sky,” he remarked, looking up at it. “Don’t see no sun but don’t see no cloud neither.”

“Yes, it’s a beautiful day,” said the grandmother. “Listen,” she said, “you shouldn’t call yourself The Misfit because I know you’re a good man at heart. I can just look at you and tell.”

 What does the grandmother mean when she calls the Misfit a “good man” in this passage?
 What does she mean by “lady” and “common.”
 Speculate on why the Misfit might be struck by the fact that there is no sun but also no cloud in the sky. Compare this to the grandmother’s own later recognition of this detail.

Excerpt 3
“Two fellers come in here last week,” Red Sammy said, “driving a Chrysler. It was a old beat-up car but it was a good one and these boys looked all right to me. Said they worked at the mill and you know I let them fellers charge the gas they bought? Now why did I do that?”

“Because you’re a good man!” the grandmother said at once.

“Yes’m, I suppose so,” Red Sam said as if he were struck with this answer.

His wife brought the orders, carrying the five plates all at once without a tray, two in each hand and one balanced on her arm. “It isn’t a soul in this green world of God’s that you can trust,” she said. “And I don’t count nobody out of that, not nobody,” she repeated, looking at Red Sammy.

“Did you read about that criminal, The Misfit, that’s escaped?” asked the grandmother.

“I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if he didn’t attack this place right here,” said the woman. “If he hears about it being here, I wouldn’t be none surprised to see him. If he hears it’s two cent in the cash register, I wouldn’t be a tall surprised if he . . .”

“That’ll do,” Red Sam said. “Go bring these people their Co’-Colas,” and the woman went off to get the rest of the order.

“A good man is hard to find,” Red Sammy said. “Everything is getting terrible. I remember the day you could go off and leave your screen door unlatched. Not no more.”

 What is the effect that Red Sammy has on the developing plot? With this section, the word “good” begins to be used frequently. What does it mean to be “good” in these contexts?
 What characters in the story offer a comparison or a contrast to Red Sammy? What clues do you get about the kind of person he is?

Excerpt 2
“In my time,” said the grandmother, folding her thin veined fingers, “children were more respectful of their native states and their parents and everything else. People did right then. Oh look at the cute little pickaninny!” she said and pointed to a Negro child standing in the door of a shack. “Wouldn’t that make a picture, now?” she asked and they all turned and looked at the little Negro out of the back window. He waved.

“He didn’t have any britches on,” June Star said.

“He probably didn’t have any,” the grandmother explained. “Little niggers in the country don’t have things like we do. If I could paint, I’d paint that picture,” she said.

 The grandmother uses the word “respectful” to show her disapproval of her grandchildren’s behavior. What examples of disrespect does the rest of the passage contain?
 Identify the three different words for African American that are used in this passage and think about the effect of using all three in the same passage.
Excerpt 1
The old lady settled herself comfortably, removing her white cotton gloves and putting them up with her purse on the shelf in front of the back window. The children’s mother still had on slacks and still had her head tied up in a green kerchief, but the grandmother had on 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. In case of an accident, anyone seeing her dead on the highway would know at once that she was a lady.

She said she thought it was going to be a good day for driving, neither too hot nor too cold, and she cautioned Bailey that the speed limit was fifty-five miles an hour and that the patrolmen hid themselves behind billboards and small clumps of trees and sped out after you before you had a chance to slow down. She pointed out interesting details of the scenery: Stone Mountain; the blue granite that in some places came up to both sides of the highway; the brilliant red clay banks slightly streaked with purple; and the various crops that made rows of green lace-work on the ground. The trees were full of silverwhite sunlight and the meanest of them sparkled. The children were reading comic magazines and their mother had gone back to sleep.

 What is the effect of the reader on O’Connor’s prolific use of details (dress, colors, etc.)?
 What does she mean by the word “mean” when she says of the trees that “the meanest of them sparkled?” The word “mean” will appear again, so this is a kind of foreshadowing. Does the passage contain any other foreshadowing elements?

Work cite
Behn, Aphra. “On Her Loving Two Equally.” The Norton Introduction to Literature. Ed. Kelly J. Mays. Portable 11th ed. New York: Norton, 2014

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