A Good Man Is Hard to Find

The grandmother has an epiphany, an illuminating realization of truth, because, as the Misfit identifies in the end, she finally "had...somebody there to shoot her." It took being in a...

The speaker of O'Connor's "A Good Man is Hard to Find" writes near the conclusion of the piece: "She would of been a good woman," The Misfit said, "if it had been somebody there to shoot her every...

The "mother" in the story is unnamed, a non-entity as you put it, because her identity is unimportant. Like the grandmother, who is likewise unnamed, the mother is a representation of her...

When the family stops at The Tower for barbecued sandwiches, Red Sammy and the grandmother have a conversation about how difficult times have gotten. Red Sammy tells her, "A good man is hard to...

For the first time in her long and selfish life, the grandmother has finally realized that she's a part of something bigger. As a deeply judgmental woman, an unrepentant racist, and an...

In "A Good Man is Hard to Find" by Flannery O'Connor, the author portrays the children as obnoxious in a way that fits in with the "meanness" of rest of the characters. Lack of kindness is a large...

It seems possible to me that the Misfit kills the grandmother last because she is actually giving him an opportunity to explain his life to someone. No one seems to have been interested in his...

The first detail of the grandmother's selfishness appears in the opening line: "The grandmother didn't want to go to Florida." She had plans of her own, wanting to instead visit Tennessee, and has...

Figurative language is language that goes behind the literal and factual to add color and interest to a story. In "A Good Man is Hard to Find," O'Connor uses the figurative device of simile to...

The exposition includes the background information regarding the Grandmother and her family, which includes her son, Bailey, his unnamed wife, and their children, John Wesley and June Star. The...

When formulating any thesis statement, or literary argument, it is important to make sure that you create a statement that is debatable. Observations and facts are not debatable, so the first step...

An external conflict in the story is between the Misfit and his gang and the Grandmother and her family. When the family's car ends up in a ditch on a back road that the Grandmother mistakenly...

In addition, the conversation also provides an element of foreshadowing, as their discussion of the Misfit soon turns into an actual encounter with him for the family.

We never directly learn that the Misfit has a favorite saying, but he says twice the one we most associate with him, with variation. It's the last sentence of the story and sums up the Misfit's...

The Misfit is talking about the grandmother, who finally experiences transcendence in the moment before her death. Until then, she had led a life not overly exemplified by virtue. It is only when...

At the end of the story, the Misfit and his criminal associates have dispatched the rest of the family, and The Misfit has taken the bright yellow shirt with blue parrots that Bailey had been...

The Misfit thinks that Jesus "'thown [sic] everything off balance" because Jesus was subjected to a terrible punishment even though he hadn't done anything wrong. The Misfit tells the grandmother,...

Jesus throws everything off balance by causing the Misfit to question his murderous lifestyle and even, perhaps, to feel twinges of conscience over his chosen path. The Grandmother and the Misfit...

The Misfit claims that he was raised well and that his life turned when he was put in prison for the murder of his father. However, he also remembers his father dying 1918. There's a certain...

I would argue that the first symbol we see in this story is the grandmother's cat, which is a symbol of her rebellion against the family's plans. The family is heading to Florida on vacation, and...

In Flannery O'Connor's celebrated short story "A Good Man Is Hard to Find," the unnamed grandmother is considered the protagonist and is the central figure of the story. The grandmother is the...

At the end of Flannery O’Connor’s short story “A Good Man Is Hard to Find,” the grandmother has an epiphany – a sudden realization – of sorts. I say “of sorts,” because it isn’t clear that the...

Flannery O’Connor was a deeply devout Christian and a seriously committed Roman Catholic, and so it is not surprising that her religious views affected such works as her famous story “A Good Man Is...

The Misfit apparently does not need much motivation at all. Hurting and killing others has become a way of life for him. He is insensitive to the lot of others. He does not value anything, least of...

Similar to the grandmother, who calls herself a lady but actually behaves pretty terribly, Red Sammy calls himself "a good man." He does this because he sells gas on credit to boys who work at the...

At the end of "A Good Man is Hard to Find," the grandmother undergoes, in her terror and panic, a profound epiphany as to the shared humanity between herself and her murderer, reaching out to the...

When the family stops at Red Sammy’s BBQ place for lunch, Red Sammy and the grandmother talk over their shared values and disdain for contemporary attitudes and mores. Despite the fact that Red...

A chief way O'Connor uses foreshadowing is through introducing the idea of the Misfit early on. In the first paragraph, as the grandmother is reading the newspaper, she tells her adult son Bailey...

O’Connor’s style is often described as Southern regionalism/realism. Her stories are often categorized somewhere between the Southern Gothic and contemporary genres. Her plain style is infused with...

An escaped convict, the man who calls himself "The Misfit" renamed himself because he could not make what he had done align with the punishment that he had been given. But, there is a deeper...

The grandmother's mention of the Misfit serves as foreshadowing and irony and adds to the characterization of the grandmother. The grandmother is a manipulative and rather selfish woman who does...

The grandmother calls the Misfit a good man because she is trying desperately to save herself. She uses the protections that have served her throughout her life. She tries to offer the Misfit...

The Misfit is a character of surprising depth. He is first introduced to the readers as a vague fear, one that represents the possibility of violence in the world. Then, at his first appearance, he...

At first glance The Misfit's motivation for killing the family seems to be solely that the grandmother identified him. When she does he says, "Yes'm... but it would have been better for all of you,...

The grandmother represents people who enjoy cultural privilege. She is white, and she is likely from an upper-middle class background. As such, she has a very particular stance on the past—she...

The title points to the theme and style of Flannery O'Connor's story. O'Connor is known for her realism that veers into symbolism, and this story is no exception. The grandmother is the type of...

According to Victor Lasseter in his article "The Children's Names in Flannery O'Connor's 'A Good Man Is Hard to Find,'" the children were named after two of the most notorious outlaws of...

I like the way in which this question points towards the way in which skilled writers leave no words unused. What can seem like incidental details are actually woven into the plot and theme of such...

The grandmother tries to appeal to the Misfit's nonexistent sense of morals by claiming to see in him his "good blood" and by asserting that she "knows" he "come[s] from nice people." She delivers...

The grandmother's character arc reflects the Catholic mindset of the story's author, Flannery O'Connor. Initially, the grandmother is a selfish, snobby person. She looks down on black people and...

The conversation that the Misfit has with the grandmother reveals what a disturbing and chilling individual he is. His phrase that he repeats most acknowledges this through revealing a particularly...

Red Sammy shows just how fictitious the notion of a grand and storied past where everyone was well-behaved, morally superior, and better off than they are today truly is. Red Sammy is not a very...

It is quite possible that the children and their behavior in Flannery O'Connor's "A Good Man is Hard to Find" are, in part, responsible for the story's outcome. There is no question that the...

Flannery O'Connor's "A Good Man is Hard to Find" is fiction, a short story. As such, it can be analyzed, or dissected, into structural elements according to mainly plot, character, and figurative...

Flannery O'Connor is implying that, human nature being what it is, people are only good when they are made to be good; they respond only when there is a threat of immediate consequences. The...

Through characterization Flannery O'Connor creates humor as she depicts comedic characters with regional dialects and ridiculous physical appearances. For instance, Bailey's wife is described as...