allows insight of unexpected depth into this seemingly one-dimensional character. The glimpse is all the more disturbing when the Grandmother calls him "one of my babies."

The Misfit's demeanor makes him more frightening and, consequently, more lethal than someone who is overtly angry. Someone who displays strong and negative emotions prepares the reader for the kind of brutality in which he might engage. His polite regard for them might at first begin to garner in the reader sympathetic feelings toward him.

Bailey turned his head sharply and said something to his mother that shocked even the children. The old lady began to cry and the Misfit reddened.

"Lady," he said, "don't you get upset. Sometimes a man says things he don't mean. I don't reckon he meant to talk to you thataway.

Bailey says something so terrible to his mother that his children are shocked and the Grandmother begins to cry. Ironically, it is the Misfit's face that turns red. It could be out of anger, but his peaceful manner seems to infer that he is embarrassed by Bailey's behavior. He then tries to calm the Grandmother, explaining that Bailey probably didn't mean what he said.

What we see and what we hear are at odds with each other. For in the next sentence, the Grandmother gets slightly hysterical, imploring the Misfit to assure her that he wouldn't kill a lady.

His ability to do just that is reflected in response:

I would hate to have to.

He does not say "no." It is also noteworthy that for monster he is, he is honest. Certainly he has nothing to fear carrying a gun, but he could simply remain silent or ignore them all. He maintains a sense of tranquility as he carries on a discussion with the Grandmother. All the while, he arranges that their car will be fixed, and the members of the family are moved off into a wooded area and systematically disposed of. His composure becomes more frightening (if possible) as he has the other women and the baby killed. We are chilled to the bone to hear him say, "No pleasure but meanness." 

The Misfit at times seems child-like and helpless. When he speaks of why he is in jail and why he has taken the name "Misfit," we learn that he thinks he has been jailed and punished for things he never did. With deep irony, he says that he and Jesus are alike in that way. Jesus had committed no crime, and the Misfit didn't believe he had either, but the authorities had papers stating that he had. He displays a sense of helplessness in that he never saw the papers with the charges against him and cannot remember doing anything wrong. This sense of injustice troubles him, as it would a child.

The Misfit also struggles with who he has become. He wishes he had been alive at the time of Jesus so he would now know that to believe...

It ain't right I wasn't there because if I had of been there I would of known...I wouldn't be like I am now." His voiced seemed about to crack...[and he looked] as if he were going to cry...

The Misfit says, "God never made a finer woman than my mother." He also says that his father had a heart as good as gold, but then notes that his father had a way of not getting in trouble with the law, inferring that his father was a nefarious character of some sort. The Misfit shares that he was charged with killing his father, but that it cannot be true because his father died of fever. He appears to take honesty very much to heart, but then we wonder if the authorities were wrong or if the Misfit is insane. Certainly something has damaged the psyche of this man.

At the very instant the Misfit looks so sad, the Grandmother does two things that galvanize the plot forward with the suddenness of a lightning bolt. With a gentle voice the Grandmother says:

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

Then...

She reached out and touched him on the shoulder. The Misfit sprang back as if a snake had bitten him...

The Misfit's traits of polite gentleness and child-like helplessness are like the swaying of a cobra: the movement fascinates the intended victim, taking his or her mind off of the present danger. However, despite its mesmerism and grace, the snake still attacks, killing the person it had so recently captivated. 

These character traits are the two most important because they show how calmly vicious the Misfit can be, while also confusing the reader when he allows the damaged child to show. 

The Misfit is a man of contradictions when it comes to his own self-perception. Initially, he smiles a little when the frightened grandmother recognizes him, suggesting he relishes his infamy. However, even before the scene where the Misfit reveals his vulnerabilities to the grandmother, he has a moment of sympathy with her: Bailey says something harsh to the old lady in response to her putting them all in mortal danger, and then as the grandmother weeps, the Misfit turns red in embarrassment for her. At this moment, the reader gets a glimpse of the Misfit's own internal dilemma.

The Misfit claims he is not a good man. This is no quick response either: the Misfit carefully deliberates the matter when the grandmother says he must be a good man, desperately hoping to convince him to let the family go. However, he follows up his statement with, "but I ain't the worst in the world neither." He feels that he has been unjustly dealt with in the past, punished far beyond what crimes he'd committed. He also suffers from an inability to believe in the Christian miracles of Jesus Christ—shorthand for an inability to believe in a transcendent meaning to life itself. As it is, the Misfit says he can only find pleasure in the present moment since there is no concrete proof in God or an afterlife, and as he says to the grandmother, he takes "no pleasure but meanness."

Or at least, that is what the Misfit claims. Though he fashions himself as a heartless monster, the cracks show during his monologue to the grandmother, particularly his self-loathing:

"I wisht I had of been there," he said, hitting the ground with his fist. "It ain't right I wasn't there because if I had of been there I would of known. Listen lady," he said in a high voice, "if I had of been there I would of known and I wouldn't be like I am now."

The last line, emphasizing the Misfit's desire for a life of meaning and grace, illustrates his own dissatisfaction with criminality and nihilism. He does not appear to like himself much, but he feels he cannot escape from being who he is now. So ultimately, the Misfit continues to see himself as a social outsider; He may not be the worst man in the world, but he still exists far from the goodness he would have embraced if only he could be sure of the nature of reality.

“The Misfit” is the nickname used by a criminal who has escaped from the Federal Penitentiary, and, as the grandmother learns from a newspaper article, he seems to be traveling toward Florida. The Misfit is, evidently, a violent criminal, as he did something to someone that the newspapers have reported on, and the grandmother is upset about the idea that the family could be in close geographic proximity to such a violent offender. She tells her son, Bailey, “read here what it says he did to these people.” Of course, she also wants to go to Tennessee on vacation, not Florida, because she would like to visit some relatives there, so she is using any means necessary to convince her son that the family should not travel south.

That the Misfit comes up so early in the story is a good clue that he is foreshadowing something that happens later on. Of course, while the family travels, they get into an accident (for which the grandmother is arguably directly responsible), and the Misfit, with his carload of cronies, pulls over. When the grandmother identifies him, presumably from his picture in the paper, the Misfit says that it would have been better for her not to have realized who he is. Now, essentially, they will have to kill the family.

What begins as an ordinary and comic story of an American family heading out for a typical 1950s vacation in the car with Mom, Dad, two children and a difficult grandmother hiding the family cat will become a grotesque tragedy and story about the power of grace. O'Connor foreshadows the tragic turn of events in the story by bringing up the Misfit twice before he and the family have their encounter. By having the grandmother function as the one to speak of him most, O'Connor establishes a relationship between the two of them even before they meet. The grandmother mentions him in the first paragraph of the story, warning Bailey about him, and later discusses him with Big Sam at the diner. The double mention of the Misfit helps the reader to anticipate that he might somehow get involved in the plot of the story and makes it far less strange when he pops up in the lonely woods where the family has flipped the car into a gulch on the side of the road.

The grandmother's second mention of the Misfit, in the context of a good man being hard to find, shows the banality and superficiality of her definition of a "good man." She calls Red Sam a good man when he tells her he allowed "some boys from the mill" to have their gas on credit because they looked reputable. Later, she will call the Misfit a good man three times, saying she can see he doesn't come from "common blood." She mentions two more times that she can see he is a good man. But at this point, she isn't seeing him. It isn't until the very end, when she says "you're one of my own children" and reaches out a hand to touch him, that she really sees him, and at this point, she is beyond banal characterizations of who comes from good blood.

The Misfit is brought up a second time by the diner owner. This serves two purposes. The first is to establish his continued presence within the story. He will become an important character at the story's climax, and O'Connor allows him to almost haunt the narrative.

The second is to provide the grandmother and the diner owner an opportunity to expound upon the title of the story: a good man is hard to find. In their own simple way, they explore the story's central themes of good and evil. The Misfit represents evil in the story, and the grandmother represents a tainted sort of good. 

The Misfit is brought up a second time both to further promote his existence in the story and to allow the characters to discuss the nature of good and evil. 

The Misfit is an escaped convict who, with two others, drives up on the family after their accident.  In a sense, he becomes a paraclete of God, for in his discussion with the grandmother about his crime and the punishment that did not fit, as well as his lack of faith, 

I wan't there [during Christ's life] so I can't say He didn't [raised the dead]...I wisht I had of been there...It ain't right I wasn't there because if I had of been there I would of known and I wouldn't be like I am now.

When the grandmother discovers a connection between this sinner and herself, crying out,

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

the Misfit springs back, repulsed, and kills her.  Having brought the grandmother to grace, the Misfit declares,

She would of been a good woman," The Misfit said, "If it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life.

The Misfit acts an agent of change because he shocks the grandmother out of her complacency. He murders her entire family, and it is clear that he is about to murder her. All of a sudden, everything she has relied on to keep her safe has no value. She has been proud of being a lady, but when she uses that status to appeal to The Misfit, she realizes it has no value to him. She also relies on her money, but that too fails her, as The Misfit has no interest in a bribe.

As she faces death, the grandmother is stripped down to her essentials. She has nothing to rely on but God, and in this moment, God's grace pours down on her, allowing her to love The Misfit as one of her own children just as he is about to kill her.

The Misfit is not really qualified to make a change in the grandmother. Only God's grace can do that. But The Misfit becomes the catalyst or agent of her change by stripping away her props and forcing her to confront reality.

With the final commentary of the Misfit on the grandmother in "A Good Man is Hard to Find," the Misfit utters his unique moral truth:

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

With this utterance, the reader realizes these are the words of a counter moralist.  That is, the Misfit teaches the grandmother the truth about herself as she is faced with being killed, an action that is counter morality.  For, it is only when faced with dying and being talked to as she has talked to her own family that the grandmother realizes the depravity of her own soul as she sees it reflected in the Misfit:

Why, you're one of my own children!

The grandmother's redemption comes as a result of The Misfit's murder--a counter-morality morality.

In her attempt to plead for her life—and maybe the lives of her family—the grandmother repeatedly calls the Misfit a “good man.” The Misfit, in response, assures her that he is not a good man, and that the only “pleasure” in life is “meanness.” The Misfit is a tortured soul, who believes that the world is out to get him. He also struggles with religious faith; the only time the Misfit gets visibly upset is when he wishes he would have been there to witness Jesus’ miracles or crucifixion.

Despite the surface impression that the Misfit is a sadistic criminal, his actions in the story are rational. At first, the Misfit and his two henchmen help the family with their overturned car. While it is unclear whether the Misfit intended to kill the family from the beginning, one could argue that he did not based on his statement to the grandmother:

it would have been better for all of you, lady, if you hadn't of reckernized me.

This suggests that the only reason the Misfit has to murder the family is because of her identification. If the grandmother had’nt suddenly proclaimed the man’s identity, it is possible that the Misfit would have just left the family in the wilderness or perhaps even traded cars with them.

This is further indicated after he shoots the grandmother. When he makes his famous remark about the grandmother being a good woman if someone would have shot her every minute of her life, one of the Misfit’s accomplices says that sounds fun. The Misfit dryly replies, “Shut up, Bobby Lee. It’s no real pleasure in life.” This statement suggests that the Misfit did not enjoy killing the family or the grandmother, but rather sees it as a necessity. Although the Misfit’s morals are not the same as most people, he does seem to have a kind of code for himself.

In Flannery O'Connor's "A Good Man Is Hard to Find," the Misfit is an escaped convict who has been in jail for murdering his father. Of course, the Misfit claims that his father "died in nineteen ought nineteen of the epidemic flu" and that he is innocent. When the grandmother asks the escapee why he thinks he went to jail, though, he says that he can't remember. It is interesting how he describes himself because he mentions many normal life experiences that he has had. For example, the Misfit says that he served in the armed forces, was married twice, and has worked on railroads, on farms, and as an undertaker. These jobs all seem honorable compared to a criminal's life and prison. However, what the Misfit says about himself is different than how he acts. He and his friends kill a young family of four along with the grandmother, which doesn't seem consistent with any type of normal or honorable life. Based on the fact that actions speak louder than words, the Misfit, therefore, is not only a murderer, but he is also a liar to himself and others.