dotted outline of a black cat sitting within a basket in front of an older woman wearing a sundress

A Good Man Is Hard to Find

by Flannery O’Connor

Start Free Trial

Student Question

What does the Misfit mean by his statement about "a good woman" in "A Good Man is Hard to Find"?

"She would have been a good woman...if there had been someone there to shoot her everyday of her life."

Quick answer:

The Misfit's statement highlights the grandmother's lack of genuine goodness throughout her life, only achieving true empathy and humility when faced with death. Her character is marked by arrogance and racism, but in her final moments, she recognizes the Misfit as part of the human family, reaching out to him. This revelation comes too late, suggesting she needed constant threats to inspire true goodness, which the Misfit ironically understands despite his own moral failings.

Expert Answers

An illustration of the letter 'A' in a speech bubbles

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 threatened with the reality of death that she finds the depth of true goodness within herself.

The Grandmother is arrogant and self-centered.  Her insistence that the family take a detour so that she can visit a house from her childhood leads to the circumstances that result in their deaths.  The Grandmother is inordinately critical of her daughter-in-law while doting on her son, and she reveals a superior moral attitude and a racist orientation, rudely calling a poor black child a "pickaninny".  When she realizes that her family has been killed and that her life too is in iminent danger, she at first tries to save herself by using shameless flattery on the Misfit.

It is only at the...

Unlock
This Answer Now

Start your 48-hour free trial and get ahead in class. Boost your grades with access to expert answers and top-tier study guides. Thousands of students are already mastering their assignments—don't miss out. Cancel anytime.

Get 48 Hours Free Access

moment of her death that the Grandmother receives a revelation.  She looks at her soon-to-be murderer and says, "Why you're one of my babies.  You're one of my own children", reaching out to touch him gently on the shoulder.  The Grandmother has humbly come to the realization of her place and the place of every other person in the realm of humanity, and it has taken the threat of imminent destruction to bring her to this awakening.  Ironically, if she had had someone to threaten "to shoot her everyday", she might have lived a better life.

Approved by eNotes Editorial
An illustration of the letter 'A' in a speech bubbles

What does the Misfit mean by his remark in "A Good Man is Hard to Find" about needing someone to shoot her?

It's only with the threat of imminent violence that the grandmother has started to show kindness and consideration to another human being. The old lady has spent the whole of her life constantly judging and criticizing others, never once acknowledging that we're all part of the same human family. Yet now, at a moment of crisis, and with a gun pointed straight at her by a crazed, psychotic killer, she reaches out to another human being for the very first time. Now she recognizes that the Misfit is as much a part of the human family as she is, which is why she calls him her son.

But it's all too little, all too late. One cannot, in all conscience, regard the grandmother as a good woman on the strength of one single example of kindness and empathy. If we say that someone is good, it's because they've regularly displayed goodness throughout their whole lives, not in isolated cases like this one.

Ironically, the Misfit, who is far from being a good person himself, instinctively understands this. He knows that the grandmother is one of those people who can only be good when there's some kind of threat hanging over their heads. In other words, she can only be good when forced to be good. And that's not real goodness at all.

Approved by eNotes Editorial
An illustration of the letter 'A' in a speech bubbles

As his associate's shooting spree draws to a close, the Misfit hears the grandmother’s dying declarations. Having witnessed her self-centered, foolish behavior, the Misfit understands that this woman was not good. His statement is made partly in reaction to her assertion that he is one of her children. The reader can interpret his reaction in several ways. One way to read this is that he believes her, but not in the way she would like; rather, he understands that they share a quality of evil, not goodness. A different interpretation would be that he does not believe she means they have something in common but thinks she is lying to try to get him on her side. In that case, he would reject her deviousness and hypocrisy. It seems unlikely that he believes she felt a maternal affection for him in recognizing their common humanity.

The Misfit’s assessment of the grandmother’s lack of goodness is associated with the idea of negative reinforcement. He speaks of her as one would of a child, who only behaves properly if they think they will be punished for bad behavior. The grandmother is not a moral being who is capable of right living of her own volition. The fear of death is prompting her to behave in what she thinks is an appropriate fashion, as she appeals to Jesus with her last breaths.

Approved by eNotes Editorial
An illustration of the letter 'A' in a speech bubbles

In Flannery O'Connor's world of fiction, grace is often obtained from an act of evil, or through the agency of violence that acts as a catalyst for spiritual epiphany. In the case of the egotistical grandmother who puts her own desires ahead of any of her family members, it is only after her son Bailey and his wife and children are killed and she herself is faced with death that she looks up at the Misfit and recognizes their commonality, "Why....You're one of my own children!"

O'Connor's approach to spirituality is likened to that of the German philosopher Martin Heidegger and his concept of Dasein, "being-there," a state in which death represents the point at which existence becomes complete, whether for better or for worse. Thus, according to critic Elisabeth Piedmont-Marton, when the grandmother repeats, "Jesus, Jesus," she is calling upon her Christian faith, a faith she has merely flaunted rather than lived. Moreover, it is at this point that she truly believes and recognizes her connection to the man who has tried to understand. However, when she reaches out to him with her words that he is like her, the Misfit recoils from her and rejects the grace that he could receive. Nevertheless, the Misfit's final words about her--"if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life"--acknowledge his role in the grandmother's attainment of grace.

Approved by eNotes Editorial
An illustration of the letter 'A' in a speech bubbles

How does the Misfit's quote relate to the title "A Good Man is Hard to Find"?

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 grandmother in the story is consistently arrogant and self-centered in her actions. It is only at the end of the story, when she is faced with the threat of death, that she finds a nobler side of her nature, humbly coming to the realization of her place in relation with all of mankind.  The grandmother is a better person at this moment, and the misfit ironically notes that, "if there had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life", she could have lived her whole life this way.

O'Connor is implying that, like the grandmother, humans in general are only good when someone or something makes them be.  As soon as the threat of punishment is gone, humans tend to go back to following their baser inclinations.  As the title of the story proclaims, a "good man", one who is good for goodness' sake, and consistently lives up to high standards even when no one is looking or there is no threat of negative consequences, is indeed very "hard to find".

Approved by eNotes Editorial
An illustration of the letter 'A' in a speech bubbles

Why does The Misfit say the grandmother needed someone to shoot her to be good?

The Misfit recognizes the grandmother's failings quickly. He sees that she relates to the world rather indirectly, engaged in fantasy and looking at things at she thinks they should be instead of as they actually are. 

We see this tendency in the grandmother's treatment of her son, in her semi-constant monologue of nostalgia, complaint and comparison. 

The effect of this tendency is to distance the grandmother from people. She is not entirely present with her family and she is also clearly not compassionate or sympathetic toward them. The emotional distance between the grandmother and her family is defended with a series of prejudices, fixed outlooks and attitudes. 

A lifetime of prejudicial attitudes is erased, however, at the end of the story when she realizes her helplessness and the fact that discriminatory views such as hers are related to monstrous behavior like the Mistfit's.

The Misfit is not sympathetic toward people either. He feels no remorse for his violent crimes. A systematic belief that he is "in the right" allows him to achieve a similar impersonal distance, like the grandmother, between himself and others. 

With a gun pointed at her, the grandmother suddenly connects to the Misfit. She is suddenly very concerned for her son also. In this moment, she the distance is closed between herself and those around her. She is no longer protected by her prejudices and her nostalgia. She no longer lives in the state of abstraction that these ideas represent. 

The Misfit rightly sees that the grandmother is engaged with reality in this moment, not abstracted from it. She faces herself, realizes that she loves her son, and suffers without turning away into criticism, comparison or nostalgia. 

Approved by eNotes Editorial