Dec 20, 2009

A Good Man Is Hard to Find | Critical Overview

"A Good Man Is Hard to Find," the title selection of O'Connor's 1955 collection, has received a great deal of critical attention. The story serves as an excellent introduction to O'Connor's fiction because it contains all the elements that typify O'Connor's work: a combination of humor and horror, grotesque characters, and an opportunity for characters to accept God's grace. Critics were initially intrigued with O'Connor's use of violence in her stories, uncommon for a writer—not to mention a woman—in the 1950s and 1960s, yet they recognized her ability to draw characters with...