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A Good Man Is Hard to Find

by Flannery O’Connor

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Discussion Topic

Characterization and Significance of the Grandmother in "A Good Man is Hard to Find"

Summary:

In Flannery O'Connor's "A Good Man is Hard to Find," the grandmother's epiphany is a pivotal moment of grace and spiritual awakening. Confronted by the Misfit, she suddenly recognizes their shared humanity, realizing that even someone as morally flawed as herself can find kinship with a murderer. This moment of compassion and clarity represents a significant transformation from her previous judgmental and superficial nature. Her attire, emphasizing her concern with appearances, contrasts with her final realization of inner truth and grace.

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In "A Good Man Is Hard to Find," why and how is the grandmother's epiphany significant?

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 life-and-death situation, a moment that tested all of her mettle and values, for her to have a realization about her own humanity as well as the Misfit's. When the Misfit shows emotion and vulnerability, his voice "about to crack," this is when her own "head cleared for an instant." It seems that this is the exact moment of her epiphany: when she observes his emotions in her own heightened emotional state, she realizes how they are similar, rather than how they are different.

The Misfit is precisely the kind of person that the grandmother would never have called a "good man" before she found herself in this situation. He has been to prison multiple times; he's been accused of many...

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crimes, some of which he has actually committed. He doesn't come from a family she would consider to be "good people," even though she tells him he does when she is trying to convince him to spare her life. This epiphany is significant because it shows that people can be redeemed and can reconnect with humanity, even after an extended estrangement. The final description of her shows that she has become innocent again: she "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." Her mind, like the sky, was clear when she recognized the Misfit, figuratively speaking, as "one of [her] babies." She saw him, however briefly, as someone deserving of love and care. It is significant that she was able to have this realization at all.

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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 grandmother is entirely or fully conscious of this realization, and it is clear that the revelation lasts for only a split second before she is immediately shot and killed by the Misfit.

O’Connor, referring in the first sentence here to the Misfit, describes the crucial moment as follows:

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.

The grandmother has increasingly been in a state of paralyzed shock as she realizes that the Misfit and his henchmen are systematically murdering her entire family and that she, too, is about to die. She has been saying anything she can think to try to save her life. However, as the Misfit reveals his own spiritual torment and his own deep emotional pain, the grandmother responds in an entirely unexpected way: she reaches out and tries to comfort the last person on earth to whom she might have been expected to show compassion. Her “epiphany” – her realization that the Misfit is “one of [her] own children,” lasts only an “instant,” but it is enough (O’Connor implies) to transform the grandmother’s spiritual existence and perhaps to begin the transformation of the Misfit as well.

It’s important to emphasize that O’Connor does not present the grandmother’s perception and conduct here as the products of deliberate, rational choice.  Doing so would have implied an entirely different kind of “epiphany.”  Rather, O’Connor presents the grandmother as an instrument of God’s grace. God is using his own power to transform the grandmother and also to literally reach out, through her, to the Misfit, so that the Misfit, too, is granted a sort of epiphany. The grandmother is not responsible for the epiphany she experiences; God is. The grandmother’s life is transformed, in its last split seconds, not by the grandmother but by God. O’Connor argued (rightly) about this particular story that the grandmother is both the beneficiary and the instrument of God’s grace. Her epiphany is God’s gift, both to her and (if he will accept it) to the Misfit as well.  One may agree or disagree with O’Connor’s theology, but her explanation of what happens in this tale seems far more convincing than any other.

Some readers are shocked by the grandmother’s behavior: why, they ask, should she reach out to such a vicious person? Isn’t she just being manipulative one last time? Why doesn’t she resist him? Isn’t her death meaningless?

O’Connor would have said (rightly) that thanks to God, the grandmother is the one who wins this contest with the Misfit.  Each of us, after all, must die, but it is the grandmother who manages to live, if only for a moment, in the truest and deepest senses of the word.

Little wonder, then, that our last vision of the grandmother shows her, with her legs “crossed” under her like “a child’s” and “her face smiling up at the cloudless sky.”

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In "A Good Man is Hard to Find," what does the grandmother's attire for the trip reveal about her character?

In Flannery O'Connor's story, "A Good Man is Hard to Find," the grandmother is concerned with appearances. She cares about how the children act and how she is dressed. Before they leave for their trip, she says she needs to dress nicely in case she has an accident and someone finds her on the side of the road. They will know she is a lady by the way she is dressed. She wants people to know that she is a lady or a "good woman." The notion of being a good woman or a good man is very important to the grandmother. Being 'good' means not being low class or crude. It also means being religious and moral. Therefore, the grandmother cares that people know she is all of these things and dressing the part will reflect that. Her dress, then, reveals her character in her mind.

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What does the grandmother suddenly understand when her head clears in "A Good Man is Hard to Find"?

For the majority of the story, the grandmother considers herself a morally superior individual and is depicted as a self-serving, manipulative woman, who is extremely judgmental and critical of others. The unnamed grandmother claims that her conscience is her guiding force in life and possesses superficial, traditional views of society. She also believes in a strict moral code and attempts to convince the Misfit to spare her life by referring to him as a good man. During her conversation with the Misfit, the grandmother is unaware of her hollow sentiments and does not recognize that her moral code is significantly flawed.

The grandmother even attempts to invoke Jesus's name to influence the Misfit's actions, which gives him the opportunity to reflect on his life. When the Misfit looks as if he will cry, the grandmother experiences an epiphany and murmurs,

Why you're one of my babies. You're one of my own children! (10).

The grandmother's final words and loving gesture reveal that she understands that the Misfit is her fellow suffering human being whom she is obligated to love. By viewing the Misfit as one of her own children, the grandmother sheds her intolerant, judgmental perception and experiences a feeling of unconditional love for him as a person. The grandmother's words and actions reveal that she has experienced a brief moment of grace by recognizing a deep spiritual kinship with the killer. In the last moments of her life, the grandmother has substantially grown as a person and dies in peace. The grandmother lived her life judging others and delineating people into certain groups according to her moral code but has finally realized that everyone is deserving of grace in God's eyes moments before she is shot.

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In the moment when the Misfit shows emotion, his "voice seemed about to crack" with feeling as he recounts how he came to be the criminal he is now, and the grandmother's "head cleared for an instant." She sees his twisted face near hers, looking as though he would cry, and she says, "Why you're one of my babies. You're one of my own children." She seems to suddenly see the ways in which she and this man, this low-class murderer, are similar rather than the myriad ways in which they are different.

She sees how, with love rather than judgment, he might have turned out differently, like one of her own children might have. She sees him, himself, rather than all the things she might have once believed about people like him. She recognizes his humanity and, in that moment, she becomes innocent again, just a second before she dies. The Misfit shoots her, this moment of vulnerable emotion evidently too much for him, and when she falls to the ground, her legs are "crossed under her like a child's and her face smiling up at the cloudless sky." This description of her as being suddenly like a child again and the sky being cloudless indicates that all her prejudices have fallen away and that she has become innocent and pure once more. Her mind has cleared just as the sky has, and she dies in this state of innocence and grace.

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The grandmother has a sudden moment of clarity, akin to an epiphany. For in that moment she has been touched by grace. And because she's been touched by grace she realizes, for the first time in her life, that she is connected to every other one of God's creatures.

This is a truly remarkable awakening, the kind that only God's grace can bring according to devout Christians. Here is a woman whose whole life has been characterized by her willed separation from other people, so many of whom she looks down upon with a toxic mixture of hatred and contempt. Yet here she is, acknowledging her spiritual kinship with a crazed killer on the loose. God moves in mysterious ways, as they say, and there's something truly mysterious about his movements here, not to say remarkable.

Some readers have looked upon the grandmother's epiphany as completely fake, a desperate ploy to avoid being killed by the Misfit. But that surely misses the point of what O' Connor's attempting to do here. As she does so often in her work, she wants to present us with the transformative power of grace and to show us how it can turn even the most unrepentant sinners towards God.

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O'Connor's conclusion to this story is often considered a puzzling one with the grandmother's remark to the Misfit, "You're one of my own children." In fact, she is experiencing her moment of grace, an essential experience for O'Connor's characters in that she recognizes a kinship with the Misfit. Despite the old woman's air of superiority earlier in the story and her lame attempts to flatter the Misfit to save her own life, she finally realizes that he is not so different from her. Of course, he's not literally her child; instead, she has a moment of insight when her head clears, and she sees that she is no better than the Misfit. In fact, both characters reveal that good "is hard to find."

Earlier O'Connor tells us the grandmother had a "peculiar feeling" she "had known him all her life" and "she could not recall who he was." The Misfit's shooting her in response to her final comment may indicate, furthermore, that he feels it mysteriously to be true. They are connected. This kind of recognition scene is common in O'Connor's work. 

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Does the grandmother in "A Good Man Is Hard to Find" embody being a lady and a Christian?

The answer to this question will depend, in part, on your definition of a good Christian woman. Were the definition charitable or forgiving, then the grandmother might well be described as a good Christian woman. She loves her family and strives to act according to what she believes is right. 

However, the grandmother's sense of right is highly convenient and selfish. She is deceitful, arrogant, manipulative, bitter and judgmental. As a person who seems entirely to lack generosity of spirit and who ultimately disavows the Christian miracle of Christ raising the dead, the grandmother does not seem likely to fit most narrow definitions of a good Christian woman. 

Early in the story, the grandmother demonstrates her negative traits. The text of the narrative overtly suggests that in telling her son, Bailey, that the family should go to Tennessee for their vacation instead of Florida she is attempting to manipulate her son. The family wants to go to Florida, but she wants to go to Tennessee. She does not admit this to be the reason she points to the newspaper story about the criminal/killer on the loose, the Misfit. Instead, she moralizes (with a quite false morality, as it were) and suggests that her son is putting his family in danger (and so he is being a bad parent). 

She says that if she were headed to Florida where the Misfit was thought to be,

"I couldn't answer to my conscience if I did."

A question arises here, early on, as to the primary or principal irony of O'Connor's story.

  • Is the irony that the grandmother claims to be a good Christian woman when she is not?
  • Or is the irony that her manipulations and schemes, which lead to the deaths of every member of the family, are initially presented as a way to avoid being killed by a roving murderer?

Perhaps these two ironies are very similar in the end. Yet, the inflections of each differ. If the irony is oriented by character, we have to see the grandmother as a false person hiding behind piety, who ultimately is confronted by a man who is explicitly and decidedly against piety and religion.

This reading puts the grandmother's essential falseness at the center of the story and contributes to an overall theme of the difficulty of finding a good, truly faithful person in the modern world. 

The second irony leans toward a broader statement on the folly of human intentions and allows us to read the character of the grandmother with less blame. She may be, in this reading, merely flawed - as all people are.

This reading easily incorporates the faults of the grandmother in terms of the cause of the car accident. It is her fault of memory that the family heads down the wrong road. It is her fault of honesty that leads her to bring the cat along on the trip (and the cat's release in the car then directly causes the accident). The deceit of the grandmother is thorough, though in some ways it is also simply childish.

"Her lie is selfish but by no means atrocious, yet the consequence for this lie is death, for herself and her entire family" (eNotes).

Seen in this light, the grandmother's character might be understood with some empathy. She is not the same kind of monster the Misfit is. Rather, her willingness to act selfishly and deceitfully are a quite pale comparison to his willingness to kill, rob and destroy. She wanted to get her way and so lied, almost innocently. Her false piety is, perhaps, similarly self-serving but also innocent and unenlightened.

Unlike the Misfit, the grandmother does not realize that she is not actually pious or "good." Like most people, she has a limited self-awareness and just happens to be superficial and haughty - flaws that might usually be forgivable. 

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What values does the grandmother represent in "A Good Man Is Hard to Find"?

The grandmother in “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” represents those who value personal gain, being selfish, and controlling others. She also represents those who associate self-worth with social status and virtue.

The grandmother is very concerned with how she appears to other people. For example, consider how she puts her gloves and her purse by the back window and is sure to wear her hat and pinned violets. “In case of an accident,” the narrator explains, “anyone seeing her dead on the highway would know at once that she was a lady.” This of course foreshadows the grandmother’s eventual death on the road, but it also reveals her values. The fact that her foremost concern following her death is appearing to be a proper lady suggests that she represents an embrace of superficial values.

However, the grandmother’s most significant values are shown through her judgments and her lies. Consider how she critiques other people, such as the way the mother raises the kids and how she blames Europe for everything wrong in today’s society. The grandmother is the type of person to accept no personal responsibility, who instead finds fault with everyone and everything else. This way of acting represents self-centered values.

The grandmother is also focused on personal gain and control of others throughout the story. Consider how she lies about the secret panel in the house in order to get the children excited to visit. Telling this lie shows that she does not consider the consequences of her selfish actions, and she merely acts out of a desire to get what she wants.

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Is the grandmother in "A Good Man Is Hard to Find" truly a lady and a good Christian woman?

The grandmother in this story relies on her outer appearance to convey her ladylike qualities but totally dismisses her inner character, which neither reflects the characteristics of being a lady nor a Christian.

Notice how the grandmother chooses clothing that she believes designates her as a lady:

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.

Her hope is that her outer appearance will earn her preferential treatment should she encounter any difficulty on this trip. Thus, in desperation to save her own life, she relies on this same sense of outer appearances to try to convince the Misfit not to kill her:

“Listen,” the grandmother almost screamed, “I know you’re a good man. You don’t look a bit like you have common blood."

The grandmother is a racist and an elitist. When they pass a young black child during the drive, the grandmother refers to him as a "pickaninny" and a "nigger," then notes how blacks "don't have things like we do." In this statement, the grandmother presents a clear division between herself and the world of this young child. She doesn't want to help; her motives are to paint a picture of this child's seeming struggles.

The grandmother believes herself superior. This reflects neither ladylike behavior nor Christian tenets. 1 Peter 2:17 calls believers to "honor all people." 1 Thessalonians 3:12 asks that "the Lord cause you to increase and abound in love for one another, and for all people." Romans 12:16 commands that believers "be of the same mind toward one another; do not be haughty in mind, but associate with the lowly." The grandmother's beliefs about herself, this child, the Misfit, and her opportunity for salvation demonstrates no proof that she is a believer in the commandments of Christ.

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How is the grandmother described at the end of "A Good Man Is Hard to Find"?

The grandmother tries to save herself by pleading to the Misfit, "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!"

The Misfit responds, "Jesus was the only One that ever raised the dead 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."

Just before it is her turn to be shot, the grandmother says, "Why you're one of my babies. You're one of my own children!" She touches the Misfit on the shoulder, and he springs back "as if a snake had bitten him and [shoots] her three times through the chest."

The Misfit tells his accomplice to throw the grandmother into the woods with the others, adding: "She would have bee a good woman if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life."

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In Flannery O'Connor's "A Good Man is Hard to Find," the grandmother collapses in death, a childlike smile upon her face with her legs folded into a grotesque cross, symbolic of her sudden honesty and consequent redemption in recognizing herself in the Misfit:  "Why you're one of my children."  When the Misfit responds to her urgings to pray, the Misfit responds with a nihilistic response.  He declares that "Jesus shown everything off balance."  That is, the Misfit feels that the punishment for Him was not equal to anything that He did, just as the Misfit's punishment did not balance with what he had done.

Through these and other religious motifs, such as the family's going through the dark woods as "a traditional theme in Christian exempla" (enotes), the mother's sin of selfishness is redeemed through her sacrificial death.  This unusually attained redemption is employed by O'Connor as a way of shocking the reader from what she called "religious complacency."

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What social and religious values does the grandmother represent in "A Good Man is Hard to Find"?

The grandmother's behavior and her speech expose a number of social and religious conventions. The first is that she expects, being a senior citizen and a mother, that her son will listen to her and, out of respect, acquiesce to her suggestion that they travel to Tennessee. This request is, however, ignored even when she points out the danger of traveling to Florida.

Once they are ready to leave, she illustrates another old-fashioned social convention: to get all dressed up for a trip. She puts on attire that, she believes, will make her look like a lady if they should have an accident and she's found dead on the highway (this line of reasoning isn't quite as traditional). Another social practice she exercises is to point out the scenery while they are driving. The trip, to her, should be an educational venture and she makes a point of talking about the sights and pointing out places of relevance to her grandchildren.

In addition, it is clear that the grandmother believes in the principle of respect, not only for others, but also for the environment. She, for example, stops the children from disposing of their litter through the car window and also regularly complains about their lack of respect for her. She vents her frustration about this by admonishing her son, Bailey, about the fact that he does not show any respect for his state and saying that "children were more respectful of their native states and their parents and everything else."

In their encounter with the Misfit, the grandmother displays the religious conventions she believes will convert him. She clearly believes that prayer would help him and that he would find redemption and therefore change his ways. She believes that if she can appeal to whatever goodness he still has left in him, he will reconsider. She is, though, made aware by the insidious criminal that he had already considered religion as a way out for him but could not find any solace or redemption. Her appeal has no effect.

Even the grandmother's appeal to courtesy (another social convention) has no effect on the Misfit. She cries out that a man "ought not to shoot a lady," but that doesn't work with him. He cannot be rescued or turned by convention, whether social or religious, for he is beyond anything. He is a hardened criminal and a remorseless, cold-blooded killer who forgets the wrongs that he has done.

It is markedly ironic that the grandmother is the one responsible for exposing herself and her family to this danger and, just like the Misfit, does not realize or acknowledge the huge mistake that she had made.

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The unnamed grandmother in the short story "A Good Man is Hard to Find" by Flannery O'Connor shows many elements of conventional middle-class southern values. 

Her first major social value is the importance of the concept of being a "lady." She laments the decline of good manners and the difficulty of finding people who follow the conventional codes of polite behavior, codes including speech, dress, and gesture (holding doors, etc.). She tends to identify following these external values with moral goodness, even though the two are not actually related. Particularly ironic is her concern for dressing well at all times so that if she dies she will appear a ladylike corpse, a gruesome concern made especially ironic by the end of the story.

Next, her conventional religious values emphasize outward conformity to religious ritual rather than inward goodness. This is especially brought to the forefront in her conversations with the Misfit, who actually takes Christianity somewhat more seriously than she does, in the sense of dealing with it as a real issue rather than a sort of social ornament.

Finally, she accepts conventional gender roles, on the surface accepting masculine power and superiority but simultaneously not listening to the advice of the male characters in the story.

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How does the first sentence of "A Good Man is Hard to Find" influence our understanding of the Grandmother?

Even if you hadn't read any further, the first sentence should alert the astute reader to the fact that the grandmother is a rather selfish character who doesn't realy think about anybody else except her own wishes or desires. The first sentence assumes that there are other people who do want to go to Florida, and the way that the story starts off with the character of the grandmother asserting her wishes in a sense creates a very strong image of a dominant female character who wants her choices to be adopted, no matter what other people think. This impression is supported just a few lines on, where the reader is told that the grandmother is ready in the car with her cat:

She didn't intend for the cat to be left alone in teh house for three days because he would miss her too much and she was afraid he might brush against one of the gas burners and accidentally asphyxiate himsef. Her son, Bailey, didn't like to arrive at a motel with a cat.

This is why the cat is hidden and she is deliberately deceiving her son, and going against his wishes, even though it is he who is driving and is the "man of the house." This supports the initial impression received by the reader that the grandmother is a very selfish character who is determined to have her way, whatever she needs to do in order to achieve it.

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How is the grandmother characterized in the first paragraph of "A Good Man Is Hard to Find"?

In Flannery O'Connor's short story "A Good Man is Hard to Find" she uses characterization as one of the major elements to build interest in the story's content. The grandmother is the character that is most heavily focused on. The story starts out with the family preparing to take a trip to Florida. However, it is stated that the grandmother did not want to go to Florida but instead wanted to "visit some of her connections in  east Tennessee". Therefore, she tried at every opportunity to change Bailey's mind. She starts by appealing to his sense of safety and scarring him out of the idea of Florida. She mentions how "this fellow that calls himself The Misfit is aloose from the Federal Prison and headed toward Florida". She then tries to make him feel guilty for putting his children in danger. Then she appeals to the mother's sense of raising the children, hoping that she will change Bailey's mind. 

In this way the grandmother is shown to be manipulative and self serving. She is not as much concerned for the safety or proper upbringing of the children as she is in being allowed to visit her "connections".

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Do the readings of "A Good Man is Hard to Find" contradict each other regarding the grandmother's character?

No, the readings do not contradict one another if there is an understanding of religion from the point of view of the author.

At the core of O'Connor's "A Good Man is Hard to Find" is the question of faith and God's grace which is always undeserved and outside the character. As such, the grandmother's being a shallow and selfish sinner does not figure into her merits for receiving grace. For, after all, Jesus forgave many great sinners and bestowed His grace upon them when they humbled themselves and asked forgiveness

While the grandmother does prattle on and is hypocritical in her sanctimony--e.g. she purports to be a Christian yet she calls the black children racial epithets--what distinguishes her from the Misfit and allows her, rather than the malevolent Misfit, to receive grace, is her faith. For, in the end, the grandmother has an epiphany, a moment of psychological clarity that saves her as she looks up at the Misfit and says, 

"Why, you're one of my babies. You're one of my own children!"

On the other hand, the Misfit rejects this moment of grace as he

sprang back as if a snake had bitten him and shot her three [religious number: Peter denied Christ 3 times] times in the chest.

In an essay published in The Art and Vision of Flannery O'Connor, Robert Brinkmeyer writes,

...the Misfit cannot place his faith in something he cannot be rationally certain of, while the grandmother continues to cling to a faith without an intellectual foundation or certainty of belief. The Misfit is incapable of wrapping himself around the paradox as O'Connor phrased it, 'that you must believe in order to understand, not understand in order to believe.'

The grandmother's ultimate faith is defined when she utters the name of Jesus repeatedly while the Misfit has rejected faith in his insistence on empirical proof--"I wisht I had of been there." Nevertheless, he acknowledges his role in the grandmother's reception of grace in his saying that

"[S]he would have been a good woman...if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life"

because her faith would be continually tested. It does seem, too, that there is some regret on his part that he does not possess such faith in his telling the grandmother, "No pleasure but meanness" as his voice becomes "almost a snarl."

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What social and religious values does the grandmother represent in "A Good Man is Hard to Find"?

One way in which the grandmother reveals the societal values of her older generation is through her dress, juxtaposed through the comparatively lax values of her daughter-in-law.  While the grandmother sets out on the trip in "white cotton gloves" the "children's mother still had on slacks and still had her head tied up in a green kerchief" while the older lady "had on a navy blue straw sailor hat with a bunch of white violets...In case of an accident, anyone seeing her dead on the highway would know at once that she was a lady."

Other ways the grandmother's societal values are "dated" is in respect to the roles of children and adults.  When John Wesley, her grandson, mouths off to her, she says, "children were more respectful of their native states and their parents and everything else. People did right then."

Not all of grandmother's values are laudable, especially in regard to race sensitivity.  Immediately after berating John Wesley, she exclaims, "Oh, look at the cute little pickaninny!"  Her affection for the South and the days of slavery are not at all disguised. 

Relgiously, there is not much in the story to suggest that the grandmother is overtly religious, other in her Christian-like belief in the innate goodness of man.  Appealing this belief to the Misfit, he replies:  "God never made a finer woman than my mother and my daddy's heart was pure gold."  And then he kills her. 

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What does the grandmother in "A Good Man Is Hard to Find" reveal about human nature?

The grandmother reveals that even the most difficult people can be transformed through grace. During the car trip that leads to the family falling into the hands of the Misfit and his gang, the grandmother shows herself to be childish, manipulative, racist, xenophobic (she and Big Sammy complain about all the dollars going overseas), underhanded (she sneaks the cat into the car), and smugly superior about her status as a lady. Yet, when she is faced with the reality that the Misfit has killed her son, daughter-in-law, and grandchildren, she has a moment of genuine connection with her murderer. Frightened and suddenly coming to the realization that all her normal props have been stripped away, she suddenly perceives the Misfit as a child of God, just like her own child. This is God's grace shining into the life of a flawed person, and she is able, for an instant, to love the Misfit. She puts out her hand and touches him. He kills her—but she dies transformed. 

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How does the grandmother's speech in "A Good Man Is Hard to Find" characterize her?

In Flannery O'Connor's short story, "A Good Man is Hard to Find," the grandmother is a central character. Her speech reveals several things about her. She often speaks of the past, which shows how she longs for an older time when things were different. She was happier then, and there were more 'good men' than there are now. She is unhappy living with her son and his family, none of whom are very nice to her.

Another element of her speech is that she talks too much. She is very opinionated and tries to tell the family what to do and where to go. The family rarely listens to her, however, and she is basically talking to hear herself talk. In the end, when they meet the Misfit, she tries to talk him out of killing her as well as the family. She doesn't stop talking and keeps telling the Misfit that he is a good man. When he finally shoots her three times, he says it's because she talked to much. Ultimately, the grandmother's incessant talking is what hastens her death.

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