A Good Man Is Hard To Find: A Literary Analysis

If you were to ask someone what their definition of a happy life would be, they would probably give you an answer like, “having fun.” This is completely untrue in Aristotle’s terms. According to Aristotle, for a man to lead a happy life he must learn each of the intellectual virtues, and practice each of the moral virtues throughout his life. These moral virtues are justice, courage, temperance, magnificence, magnanimity, liberality, gentleness, prudence, and wisdom. With so many virtues to constantly abide by, a man cannot know if he has led a happy life until his life is nearly finished. In the story “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” by Flannery O’ Connor, the question is

In the story “A Good Man is Hard to Find” by Flannery O’Connor starts out by giving a look at a dysfunctional family on a vacation, but ultimately, gives insight into ourselves as well as the nature of good and evil, how they can clash, and how they can co-exist, even in the same person. The setting, which plays a critical role in this short story because the grandmother shows her selfish wants and views on people and society and believes that things were much better in her early years. As the story unfolds the setting provides insights to the where the dysfunctional family will eventually meet their doom, which is

You are sitting in your living room at home watching the nightly news. The lead story for the night is about a family of four that were murdered. After seeing and hearing about something like that we often ask ourselves, What could possess a person enough to kill another human being? What is it that drives a person to kill? Will we ever know? Many authors use this unique mentality in short stories. They write about what the killer thinks and how he/she acts on his/her thoughts. One of these stories is “A Good Man Is Hard To Find”, by Flannery O’Connor. In this story O’Connor’s victim, The Misfit, is an escaped convict. He was in the Federal Penitentiary for killing his father. Throughout the story O’Connor builds up this killers mentality

This paper will present a rhetorical context for the use of violence in the short story, “A Good Man Is Hard to Find,” as she presented in her essay “The Element of Suspense.” The form of classical tragedy in this story will also be analyzed from the critical theories of Aristotle and Longinus. Tolstoy will be used to examine the use Christian symbolism. Nietzsche will provide a more well-rounded universal conclusion to the uses of tragedy and spiritual elements in this classic story.

The second theme exhibited by the grandmother is her class and racial prejudice, as most characters in southern gothic stories do. The grandmother exudes a sense of self-righteousness that she explains is imbedded in her because she came from a good family. Throughout “A Good Man is Hard to Find” descriptions of the south come up often. Most of the images are portrayed when the grandmother is reminiscing about “In my time” and on the “plantation” (114). Her insistent attitude and obsession about visiting the plantation shows the grandmother truly enjoyed that time period and implies she had no problem with the racial segregation in that era. She remembers back to when she was a young girl and Mr. Edgar Atkins Teagarden would bring her watermelon. “but she never got the watermelon”, “ because a nigger boy ate it when he saw the initials E.A.T.!” (115). It is clear the grandmother feels it is appropriate to use the N word when referring to African Americans, even years after slavery era. As the grandmother glamorizes Negroes and life on the plantation, it is clear she admired the ways of the Old South, a true characteristics of Southern Gothic writing. Her stereotypical character projects a prejudice that leaves the audience uncomfortable throughout the story.

“A Good Man is Hard to Find”, the short story written by Flannery O’Connor describes the events that unfold about a family who ventures out on a road trip to Florida. The grandmother who resides with Bailey, her son, and his family, disapprove of the destination, and attempts to persuade Bailey to head to east Tennessee instead. Upon learning of an escaped prisoner, the Misfit, the grandmother tries to convince Bailey and his wife to alter the plans, but they disregard her pleas. There were several events that occurred during the road trip that eventually resulted in an encounter that keeps the reader on the edge of their seat.

In “A Good Man Is Hard To Find”, the author uses different characterization techniques to establish character. Flannery O’Connor’s use of dialogue and of a character’s thoughts help us to understand that grace may be given some who are undeserving of it. The grandmother is a prime example that grace can be given to the undeserving. We see this when the story says, “ ‘Little niggers in the country don’t have things like we do.

Looking at “A Good Man is Hard to Find”, the reader is introduced to a family very early on in the story. With a particular character standing out, the grandmother. Her

A Good Man is Hard to Find Flannery O’Connor’s A Good Man is Hard to Find is filled with foreshadowing which the first time reader will not grasp, but leaps out of the pages for repeated readers. When first read, A Good Man is Hard to Find, the reader does not value the importance of the grandmother charter and her warning. She is thought to just be a rambling, nagging old lady. Even the grandmother does not realize the importance of what she is saying. The grandmother warns of the misfit in the first paragraph of the novel, “’Here this fellow calls himself the Misfit is loose from the federal pen and headed toward Florida and you read here what it says he did to these people.”’ The first time reader simply sees

The tone of the story "A Good Man is Hard to Find is Ms. Bailey perspective that a person good deed is what makes them a good man. For instance, she shared with her grandchildren of the days when she was a maiden lady courting Mr. Edgar Atkins. She stated that he was a "good man" because he bought her a watermelon and left it on her porch because she was not at home. In addition, he craves his initial on it to let her know that the watermelon came from him. Ms. Bailey took his generous a being a good man along with his good-looking, being a gentleman, and a wise investment, which made him wealthy. Secondly, she made the same assumption about Red Sammy Butt being a good man. For instance, in his frustration, he shared a story of allowing three

LITR201-1403B-05 Literature: A Reflection of Life Phase 1 Individual Project Shalica Hudgins August 25, 2014 The story “A Good Man is hard to Find” was set in Georgia. Not really sure where they are exactly located, but it is somewhere in the city. The story goes through several spots such as plantations and barbeque spots.

What starts out as an innocent family road trip quickly turns into a nightmare that makes the reader wonder what the point of “A Good Man is Hard to Find” by Flannery O’Connor was. There certainly is no satisfaction in reading the murder of an innocent family for seemingly no reason. What starts out as a simple vacation turns violent as the grandmother mistakes an abandoned road for a road that is in another state but once lead to a plantation from her past. There has been much debate as to what was the cause of the deaths, as well as how successful the grandmother was in showing grace to the Misfit. There are critics who feel that the grandmother was a good woman who showed the grace of Jesus until the very end and made a lasting impression

The exposition of the story foreshadows the ending, because the misfit was a predictable character going hand and hand with the Title of the story. “A Good Man Is Hard To find.” An Expectation of the misfit doing right by the old woman “Grandmother” would have made the story title a different one. Such as A Good Man Is Easy To Find. The grandmothers true personality was revealed several times throughout the story. She was the type of person that was always interested in doing things for her connivance even if it meant compromising others. When she first told her son Bailey to drive by an old plantation she visited before in her younger years. Bailey was reluctant to drive by it since they had a long trip ahead, the grandmother manipulated

With the Bundren family, opinions and judgement came from inside and outside the family because of actions that were taken place and things that were said. After their mother, Addie Bundren, passed away, towards the beginning of the novel, a lot of emotions and feelings from the characters had been floating around and shared about to each other. This constant conflict is reflected through the character’s point of view. Darl, the son of Addie Bundren, was the only character that helped give the story a narrator and insight to the family in a broader view compared to the rest of the characters. On page 78 Cash, the son of Anse Bundren, said “ Darl has a deeper intellectual level than the rest if his family. He spends much of his time in the inner parts of his mind thinking about things on a more intense level than other characters.”(Faulkner 78) which illustrates Darl’s appearance and how helpful he is when it comes to developing the novel. Cash, being one of the more stable characters, views his family as survivors of the terrible loss they faced when their mother died. When cash says “Sometimes I think aint none of us pure crazy and aint none of us pure sane until the balance of us talks him that-a-way. It’s like it aint so much what a fellow does, but it’s the way the majority of folks is looking at him when he does it.”(Faulkner 223) he attempts to

I am going to mention about Flannery O’ Connor’s two stories in my essay. One of them is ‘’The Life save may be your own’’ and the other is ‘’ A good Man is Hard to Find’’. I will talk about Flannery O’ Connor’s’ stories’ summary and my opinions about that.