Throughout the story, the grandmother has taken her position as a Southern lady very seriously. She dressed carefully for the family road trip, wearing a lace trimmed frock and a hat that signaled her status. She considered herself superior to those she deemed lower class, such as a young Black child they passed on the road.

At the end, when the grandmother realizes the Misfit and his gang are taking her family into the woods to kill them, and that her own life is in danger, she appeals to the Misfit, calling him a "good man" and saying he wouldn't shoot her because she is a lady. She also tries to bargain with him by offering him money. The Misfit doesn't care about her social status and reminds her he can take her money once she is dead.

Ironically, it is only when the status symbols are stripped away that the grandmother becomes authentic and reaches out to the Misfit in a genuine, loving way, suddenly seeing him as like her own son. Ironically, too, it is as this moment of grace that she is killed.

Irony is created when there's a discrepancy between what we expect and what is actually true. There are many examples of irony in the story. For example, it is ironic that the family would run into the Misfit given how large the state of Georgia is. We would not actually expect them to cross paths with this dangerous man, and so this is an example of situational irony. It is also ironic that readers would develop feelings of sympathy for the grandmother, a woman who is fairly self-righteous despite her own rampant racism and sexism. Likewise, it is ironic that the reader would develop empathy for the Misfit, a man who is an escaped convict and murderer. These are also examples of situational irony.

Dramatic irony, when the reader knows more than a character does, is created by our developing understanding that the grandmother is not actually a good person, despite her claims about "good men" and her idealization of the past. Dramatic irony is perhaps the most significant irony in the story, due in part to readers' understanding of the grandmother's real condition. She believes that she is a good woman, but the irony is that she didn't really act like a "good woman" until the final moments of her life. The Misfit says, "She would of been a good woman … if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life." The grandmother only seemed to develop a more empathetic and compassionate view of people when her own life was in danger. She is not who she has long thought herself to be, and our—as well as the Misfit's—realization of this constitutes dramatic irony. It is also ironic that having her life threatened would actually make her more compassionate and loving rather than embittered and resentful.

Flannery O’Connor utilizes irony throughout her classic short story “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” in various ways.

Situational irony occurs when the grandmother tries to persuade Bailey against traveling to Florida in an attempt to avoid the Misfit—but she ends up directing her family into the murderer's path by convincing Bailey to take a back road to see an old house she remembers.

The grandmother's perception of others and judgmental nature are also ironic. The grandmother inaccurately judges individuals based on their appearances and superficial behaviors while lacking true insight into morality and ethics. She calls Red Sammy a "good man" simply because he gave two strangers free gas, which does not necessarily make him a good man. Ironically, she also refers to Misfit as a good man because of his calm demeanor and favorable appearance. Despite her assurance that she can judge a good man from a bad person, the grandmother fails to recognize that the Misfit is a sociopath and ruthless killer.

It is also ironic that the grandmother feels empowered to judge others by her narrow definition without exercising or examining her own morals. For example, the grandmother uses racial slurs, hides her cat from Bailey (who would not approve of its presence), and also conceals the fact that she misremembered the location of the estate where Bailey was driving. It is also ironic that the second the grandmother experiences an epiphany and attempts to show compassion for the Misfit, she is rewarded with a bullet in the chest.

The title, "A Good Man is Hard to Find," is truer than ever as the family meets up with anything but good men. What are the chances that the Grandmother's family would meet up with the Misfit that she read about in the newspaper at the onset of the story in trying to persuade the family not to travel to Florida but to Tennessee? Even more ironic is that the family meets the criminals by taking a road to a plantation that the Grandmother steers them towards. However, Grandmother recalls, too late, that the house is not in Georgia. Thus, they have no business driving on the road where the accident occurs and, ultimately, the entire family's demise.

Even more surreal is that the Grandmother finds herself in woods where neither clouds nor sun exist. It is as if the family is surrounded by evil, much like on a stage set. Ironically, the evil does surround them as the family members are shot one-by-one.

There is some ironic humor--or, perhaps, black humor--in the fact that a good man is, indeed, hard to find; but, a bad man is very easily encountered. With her purse-full of platitudes the grandmother has a rather patent faith that does not clarify itself spiritually until she encounters the bad man who acts as an agent of grace for her.

The fact is, then, that the grandmother has an epiphany when she meets the Misfit and recognizes her kinship to him as a sinner and is, thus, saved. So, until she encounters the Misfit, all the good men who are difficult to find serve her not for her salvation. Indeed, after she dies, the Misfit notes,

"She would of been a good woman if it had been somebody to shoot her every minute."

He, then, is the agent of grace for the grandmother, not any "good man." 

The irony of the title is shown in the way that the grandmother uses the phrase "a good man" in the story. She uses it twice: firstly in her description of Red Sam and secondly when she meets the Misfit. However, upon closer examination, it becomes clear that the grandmother defines a "good man" rather curiously. For example, with Red Sam, she calls him a "good man" after he explains how he let himself be cheated out of gasoline by two men. Being "good" in this context seems to indicate being gullible and also nostalgic for the past, both of which are two aspects that the grandmother herself can strongly relate to.

Secondly, she calls the Misfit a "good man" because she desperately tries to appeal to the fact that because he does not have bad blood he would not shoot a lady like herself, no matter what else is happening that might suggest otherwise:

"I just know you're a good man," she said desperately. "You're not a bit common!"

This is erroneous for at least two reasons: firstly, she bases this claim on her mistaken belief that the Misfit comes from a good background, and secondly, she is judging the Misfit by her own moral code. Both of these assumptions prove to be mistaken. What is ironic therefore about the title is that "good" is shown to not relate to "moral" or "kind," as the reader would normally define the word. Instead, "good," as the grandmother uses it, is a word that relates to her own moral code, which is of course very different from the moral code of those around her. It is the way that she judges others by her moral code that results in the tragic denouement of this short story.

The two characters who most believe that "a good man is hard to find," as Red Sammy says to the grandmother, are both quite deceived about their own goodness, and the title helps to draw attention to the irony of their misconceptions. The grandmother believes it is important to dress well for the car ride so that, if there is an accident, people driving by will know that she was "a lady." However, she is also a racist who is selfish and lies to her family. Red Sammy is a slovenly man who is rude to his wife, telling her to "quit lounging on the counter" and later dismissing her with a "'That'll do'" when she tries to be a part of the conversation. He has a flea-ridden monkey chained to a tree and serves greasy food to people with few choices. However, because he let two young men "charge" some gas (i.e. not pay for it, with a promise to pay later) and laments that people nowadays are untrustworthy, the grandmother behaves as though they are kindred spirits. Red Sammy and the grandmother grieve the "better times" that used to be, though they have no concept of the fact that times only used to be "better" for some, and they were worse for others. These are, quite possibly, the two least-qualified individuals to judge others' goodness. O'Connor's use of Red Sammy's claim as the title of the story helps emphasize this irony.

The title of this short story is connected to the theme of religion, prevalent in many of O'Connor's stories. The words of the title are spoken by the owner of the barbecue place, Red Sammy, in conclusion to their conversation about how the world has become a dangerous place where a person can no longer trust anyone else. The grandmother agrees with him that "good men" are difficult to find in the society they live in. The grandmother believes she is a good judge of character, but she bases her judgment on wealth, status, and outward appearance. The grandmother thinks she is a good Christian woman, but she is unable to show compassion or love toward any other person. The grandmother talks a good game, but it is not until she faces death that she realizes "that she is responsible for the man before her and joined to him by ties of kinship which have their roots deep in the mystery she has been merely prattling about so far."  It is then she understands that finding a "good man" has been difficult only because she has refused to recognize the good in people.

The family stops at Red Sammy's to eat. June Star comments that is is a broken down shack. The grandmother, who is selfish herself, notes that things aren't like they used to be and she tells Sammy he is a good man for letting two boys charge some gas. Sammy's wife brings the food out and adds that you can't trust anyone. Then they talk about the escaped murderer, the Misfit. The consensus of this conversation is that no one can be trusted and the the world has become a more violent place. The children are not respectful but really every character, with the exception of Sammy perhaps, is only interested in selfish needs.

After killing the grandmother, the Misfit says she may have been a good woman if someone had been there to shoot her every day of her life. What he means is that the world is so off balance that it takes these extreme situations to prompt people into behaving unselfishly. If everyone is selfish and untrustworthy, maybe the only thing that would make them appreciate life and others would be to constantly face death. It has been a subject of debate whether or not the grandmother actually achieves grace when she says the Misfit is "one of her children" or if this was also a last ditch effort to save her own life. This ambiguity shows that a good woman is also hard to find. In fact, it is interesting to consider if O'Connor may have intended this ambiguity.

When discussing a piece of fiction, it is always tricky to speculate about an author's point of view. We generally want to maintain some distance between the author and the narrator, even if the narrator resembles the author or shares his or her same views. It becomes even more difficult to determine an author's point of view in a third-person story like Flannery O'Connor's "A Good Man Is Hard to Find." In a story written in the third-person point of view, the narrator is not a participant in the events of the story like the narrator of a first-person story. Rather, the narrator is a kind of disembodied intelligence hovering over the story, relaying the events that occur to the reader without necessarily coloring them with his or her own viewpoint.

This is not to say, though, that the narration is completely objective. "A Good Man Is Hard to Find" is written in the third-person limited point of view, which means that the reader is only given direct access to the thoughts and feelings of one character. In this case, that character is the grandmother, and we see this in the very first sentence of the story: "The grandmother didn't want to go to Florida." Notice the verb "want;" it's a mental verb. The narrator would only be able to give us this information if they were able to eavesdrop, as it were, on the grandmother's thoughts. We are not privy to this information about any of the other characters. We can infer what they think through their actions, but we do not get direct access to any of their thoughts or feelings.

Third person limited point of view is similar in a lot of ways to first person, since in both we only get direct access to one character's interior life. The big difference between these points of view, though, is the element of voluntary admission. A first-person narrator volunteers their thoughts and feelings to the reader; a third-person narrator relays information that the character may not want to reveal. This is important for the grandmother because she puts a lot of stock in appearances, surfaces. She carefully cultivates her own appearance to manage others' impressions of her. This comes through early in the story when the grandmother privately chides her daughter-in-law for her untidy appearance: "The children's mother still had on slacks and still had her head tied up in a green kerchief." This she contrasts with her own very neat, tasteful ensemble. She concludes, "In case of an accident, anyone seeing her dead on the highway would know at once that she was a lady." A "lady" usually suggests qualities of character—poise, courtesy, refinement. The grandmother does not have any of these qualities, only the appearance of one who would.

During the car trip to find an old planation house, the grandmother realizes she has given her son the wrong directions, and the realization of this startles her so much that it eventuates in the car rolling into a ditch on the side of the road. Once the dust settles, the narrator reveals this to the reader: "The horrible thought she had had before the accident was that the house she had remembered so vividly was not in Georgia but in Tennessee." This is not a detail she would voluntarily share with the reader. It would make her look bad, which is something she would absolutely not allow. The narrator does not care, though, and reveals this piece of information to us anyway. The narrator's commitment is not to the grandmother's vanity but to ruthless honesty.

For the majority of the story, this commitment to honesty serves to cut through the grandmother's pretentions, and what we see is not flattering. But at the end of the story, the narrator's honesty provides an unexpected moment of redemption. After the other members of the family have been killed, the grandmother tries every sort of manipulation she can think of to get the Misfit to spare her: "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!" Just after this, though, she says something peculiar to him: "Why you're one of my babies. You're one of my own children!" It is a moment of recognition, the most genuinely human gesture we see from her in the entire story. We know that this is not just another manipulative gambit because the narrator tells us this: "the grandmother's head cleared for an instant." If the narrator has been so honest about the grandmother's shortcomings earlier in the story, the reader can trust that this epiphany is genuine as well.

To what extent does the narrator of this story communicate O'Connor's personal view of the grandmother? It is impossible to say. The narrator does, however, provide an honest view of a character who is not honest about herself.

In O'Conner's celebrated short story "A Good Man Is Hard to Find," situational irony occurs when the grandmother tries to avoid traveling to Florida because she fears the Misfit but ends up directing her family right into his path. Situational irony also occurs when the Grandmother attempts to escape the threatening situation but dooms her entire family when she identifies the Misfit to his face. The Misfit proceeds to have the members of her family murdered in the nearby forest by his cronies while she pleads for her life.

Dramatic irony occurs when the grandmother perceives herself a certain way but the reader recognizes her true nature. The grandmother views herself as a morally superior Christian woman who is religious, compassionate, and selfless. Ironically, the audience recognizes that the grandmother is a self-righteous, prejudiced individual, who is selfish and deceitful. The Grandmother demonstrates her prejudice and self-righteousness by judging others based on their appearances, background, and circumstances.

Situational irony occurs when the Misfit influences the Grandmother's remarkable transformation and revelation moments before killing her. Before the grandmother is shot, she comments, "Why you're one of my babies. You’re one of my own children!" The Misfit's presence influences the grandmother to see herself as a sinner and experience a brief moment of maternal compassion and concern for him. It is ironic that a serial killer enlightens the grandmother, enabling her to find redemption.

O’Connor lets us know whose story this is in the first two lines, “The grandmother didn’t want to go to Florida. She wanted to visit some of her connections in east Tennesseeand she was seizing at every chance to change Bailey’s mind.” Note how the narrator immediately gives us access to information in the grandmother’s mind, more than what an outside observer would know, but  does so in the voice of an observer.  The narrator does not say “the grandmother thought that” but rather just states her thoughts. As for the meaning of the work, as the other respondent explains, this story as all of O’Connor’s work needs to be read in terms of her Christianity and the significance of original sin, which makes all people deeply flawed.  In an essay “Mystery and Manners” O’Connor states that the subject of her work is “the action of grace in territory held largely by the devil." She tries to portray in each story “an action that is totally unexpected, yet totally believable," often an act of violence, violence being "the extreme situation that best reveals what we are essentially.” Through violence she wants to evoke Christian mystery.

The title speaks the truth, or at least O'Connor's idea of it, about the characters in the story and people in general.  She believes that "a good man(or woman) is hard to find".  Each of the characters in the story is depicted harshly or somewhat negatively - they are not likeable.  O'Connor, who was a strong Roman Catholic, demonstrates in this story that humans are completely undeserving of God's grace.  The grandmother at the very end receives grace as she reaches out to the Misfit, but the changes in her only come because she is being held at gunpoint about to die.

The story is written in the third person - with the grandmother's thoughts and perspective being prominent. 

I can only assume that Flannery O'Connor's title for "A Good Man is Hard to Find" is meant to coexist with the mood of her sometimes humorous but ultimately terrifying short story. None of the male characters in the story are good men; thus, the title. The Misfit is pure evil, and his accomplice is no better. Son Bailey is henpecked and indecisive; he wears a yellow shirt--a flag for his cowardly behavior. Grandson John Wesley follows in his weak father's footsteps; he is overweight and wears glasses. Red Sammy, who remarks that "a good man is hard to find," is a seemingly likable fellow, but he treats his wife like a slave and revels in the past. The title displays its ironic intent at the end of the story when the family finds their way into the hands of the anything but good Misfit.

One of the themes of this excellent short story is the way that the grandmother is presented at the beginning of the tale as being profoundly disconnected with everybody else around her through her selfishness and prejudice. However, through the tragic course of events that occur during the novel, she ends up experiencing an epiphany that challenges those views where she is able to see herself for who she really is. Note how she expresses this epiphany through a feeling of connection with the Misfit at the end of the story:

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.

It is ironic that the grandmother only received this understanding of grace at the end of the story, and that it takes the murder of her son's family for her to experience it. It seems that the violence she encounters in the Misfit and his crew was necessary to make her experience the grace of God, which is such an important theme in this story. As the Misfit says, she could have been a good woman if she'd have had "somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life." Irony then occurs in the story through the precise nature of the Grandmother's epiphany and what it takes for that epiphany to occur.