"A Good Man is Hard to Find"

"A Good Man is Hard to Find"

Flannery O'Connor

In the beginning of the short story "A Good Man is Hard to Find", the Grandmother's concerns about the trip to Florida foreshadow events in the story. The grandmother doe not want to take a vacation to Florida because she is trying to persuade them not to go. She is persuading them because of a Misfit who is on the run as an escapee. She has read about this escapee who is heading to the Florida area. The family ignores what grandmother is trying to tell them. She was a talkative lady. She seemed to be a very comical type of person.

This was a very interesting and suspenseful piece of literature. After learning about this "Misfit" escaping from a  penetituary, it made me very suspenseful about what was going to happen to the family. It shocked me even more at the end of the story to actually find out what had happened. 

O'Conner portrays the family as a typical family. Mother, father, children, and grandparent going on a family vacation. They are very comic because of the main character which I think is the grandmother. I was very shocked when I had finished reading this short story. I did not expect to read about the family getting killed. However, I should have thought something when three men in a hearse came to help the family after their vehicle overturned. 

The grandmother was a funny lady. O'Conner made her the central character. She thought she was right in everything she said and done. The other family members seem accustomed to her talking all the time. When she kept talking, one character read the paper and the children continued reading the comics even though the Grandmother was talking about different stuff. It was ironic to know that the grandmother dressed in her best Sunday clothes and then get killed. 

The Misfit is an escapee in the story. I think he could be written as insane because he exits a hearse with guns. The grandmother responds to him by recognition. She shrieks and just stares. She automatically recognizes him as the misfit.

I think Red Sammy's purpose in this story is a target for the Misfit. Red Sammy has a conversation about how people aren't nice anymore and that everything is going terrible where you can not leave your doors unlocked anymore. It also resembles Red Sammy as already being a victim of the Misfit when he mentions that if there was two cents in the cash register, the Misfit would take it for sure. 

This was a very interesting piece of literature for me. I really enjoyed this story. I think that I have enjoyed this one more than some of the others that we have read during this semester.