grandmother experiences a moment of grace. Instead of seeing herself as superior to him, better than him—the way she's described just about everyone throughout the entire story, as though only she remembers what gentlemen and ladies should act like—she momentarily recognizes his humanity. In this moment, the Misfit isn't a criminal or a bad man or someone beneath her socially; instead, she sees him as someone who could be her son, someone who deserves the nurturing and care he did not receive in his own youth.

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.

This is the story's climax. Until now, we aren't sure if her arguments and claims will work, or if the gang will shoot her as they've done everyone else. It seems as though the Misfit is used to hearing much of what the grandmother had said earlier, that he should pray, that he must have made some mistake at some point, as these comments didn't shock him at all. However, when the grandmother's tune changes—not as a result of her attempts to manipulate him but because she truly experiences a moment of clarity and grace wherein she understood the connection between them as human beings—it is too much for him. Without a thought, he shoots her. This is both the moment of the highest tension but also when we finally know how the conflict resolves.

The climax is the highest point of tension in a story when everything hangs in the balance, but the resolution has not yet come. In "A Good Man is Hard to Find," the climax comes when the Misfit, his gang having taken away the grandmother's son, daughter-in-law and grandchildren, has a conversation with her in a ditch. She is terrified, realizing, as she hears gun shots and screams from the woods that the gang is killing her family. She knows that the Misfit probably plans to murder her. She keeps talking, hoping that she can somehow wiggle out of the situation. She appeals to Misfit on the basis of being a lady, suggesting to him to it would be inappropriate for a "good man" like him to kill a person like her. She also offers him money. When that doesn't work, she appeals to him through religion, telling him he should pray to Jesus. Finally, in a moment of grace, she sees him as her own son:

... 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. 

That is the climax of the story. Right after that, the Misfit springs back and shoots her three times. She dies, sending the story to its resolution. 

The climax, or the highest point of action, comes when Bailey, the grandmother's son, wrecks the car.  At the grandmother's urging, and despite Bailey's reluctance, Bailey turns the car around to go visit an old plantation home which his mother says will be educational for them (and the children want to see because of a promised "secret panel"). 

However, when miles pass and the grandmother begins to doubt her memory of the location, she becomes agitated and accidentally sets off a series of mishaps:  her jerking bumps a valise (a suitcase) which upset the cat, Pitty-Sing, who jumps on Bailey and makes him steer improperly.  The car then tumbles over and lands "in a gulch off the side of the road." 

This sets the climax into motion.  Passersby who happen to see the accident come to the scene, but not, as the grandmother expects, to their aid.  Instead, the pair are the escaped convicts the grandmother had read about and discussed with Red Sammy's wife in the barbecue stand.  The outlaws have no other intent but to rob and then kill, which leads to the startling conclusion. 

The heart of the story lies in the ending. What starts out seemingly as a humorous tale of a family's comic misadventures on all-American 1950s vacation road trip suddenly turns quite dark when the family car gets stuck in a ditch on a deserted, wooded road, and the family is captured by the Misfit and his gang. We learn that the lighthearted beginning is simply a backdrop for the ending.

At the end of the story, the entire family shot and killed (it is the grandmother's fault this happens), and the grandmother is left alone to face off against the Misfit. The grandmother, who is one of the last people in the world one would expect to transcend herself in a moment of love and grace, has such a moment. She is a very annoying, snobbish, manipulative, self-willed, racist person who even her own family can barely tolerate (though, in her defense, their contempt of her motivates some of her bad behavior), but she is blessed with a moment of grace before she dies when she sees the Misfit through God's eyes and can love him as her own son.

The point of the story is that anyone, no matter how imperfect, can be touched by God's grace and redeemed. There is also at least a faint glimmer of hope that the grandmother's moment of genuine love touched the Misfit.

In "A Good Man is Hard to Find," the ending of the story establishes that the grandmother undergoes an epiphany, and that The Misfit considers that epiphany to be genuine.  The story is about the grandmother much more than it is about The Misfit. 

O'Connor believed that people are in such a bad way, spiritually speaking, that only an encounter with the depraved and grotesque canshock them into an awakening and rebirth.  The Misfit is the depraved and grotesque, and the grandmother undergoes a spiritual rebirth due to his influence.  The grandmother, accepting of almost no one and nothing throughout the story, accepts even The Misfit as a child of God when she experiences a real fear of death. 

The grandmother is such a despicable person that the deaths of her family members do not lead to this epiphany.  Only her own impending death triggers her new understanding.  Nevertheless, God's grace does act on her as a result of her encounter with The Misfit.  The ending demonstrates that even a person such as the grandmother can be changed by God's grace, according to O'Connor's beliefs. 

In literature, a story's plot progresses through several stages. These stages are the exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and denouement. A climax is when a story's plot progression reaches a turning point from which there can be no return. In Flannery O'Connor's short story "A Good Man is Hard to Find," the climax occurs when the grandmother's cat escapes and causes the family's car to fall into a ditch.

To realize the full impact of this climax, we will plot the story's main plot points.

Exposition: A family plans on traveling to Florida, but their grandmother wishes to go to Tennessee. She tries to convince her family not to go to Florida by telling them of a recently escaped criminal.

Rising Action: The family travels to Florida anyway, and the grandmother brings her cat. While traveling, the grandmother convinces her son to take a detour to visit an old house she knows.

Climax: The grandmother's cat escapes and causes the family car to fall into a ditch. While stranded, the escaped convict–known as The Misfit–shows up.

Falling Action: The Misfit intimidates the family into doing what he asks; he kills them one by one in the woods.

Denouement: The grandmother tries to save herself by convincing The Misfit that he is a good person. He shoots her anyway.

As we see in this plot progression, once the family's car is wrecked and the Misfit shows up, they are unable to continue on their original path. This is a point of no return, signaling the moment as the climax.