"A Good Man is Hard to Find" by Flannery O'Connor

Author Background
1. Flannery O'Connor, b. 1925, Savannah, GA, d. 1964
  1. She died from lupus.
    1. She wrote only 2 novels and had 2 collections of stories.
      1. After her death, the 2 collections were published as The Complete Stories.
        It won the National Book Award (1972) as well as a 2009 poll for the best book in the history of the contest (from 1950-2008).
      2. The last years of her life were spent at her family farm in central Georgia, where she wrote most of her body of work in-between battling the autoimmune disease lupus.
        O’Connor was devoutly Catholic, which influenced her writing.
        Catholicism was an outlier in the South.
        She believed that she would have no reason to write if she were not Catholic.
        “I would have no reason to write, no reason to see, no reason ever to feel horrified or even to enjoy anything.”
Short Story Background
1. Written & published in 1953.
  1. First published in the anthology "The Avon Book of Modern Writing" in 1953.
    1. One of O’Connor’s best-known stories due to its frequent appearance in anthologies.
      1. This story, like many of her other ones, follows a pattern that involves a main character recognizing “the falseness of their views.”
        This story is a famous example Southern Gothic literature.
        O’Connor did not like this definition of her work. Her stories always kept plenty of realism that other writers in this subgenre of gothic literature did not.
        O’Connor offers a commentary on Southern life and morals using dark and sometimes sinister or absurd events.
        Villains or bad guys often act like they are not all that bad or make themselves out to be the victim.
        The Misfit is an example of a villain that does not have a sense of himself as a bad guy. He is able to justify his life of crime.
Characters
1. Bailey
  1. Bailey's wife
    1. Bailey's children
      1. The grandmother
        Sammy
        Sammy's wife
        The Misfit
        Bobby Lee
        Hiram
        one of The Misfit’s crew
        one of The Misfit’s crew
        According to June Star, he looks like a pig.
        a dangerous criminal loose from a federal penitentiary
        His moral code is defined by murder and a complete lack of remorse.
        Religion is pointless to him. He believes there is “no pleasure but meanness” in the world.
        “a tall burnt-brown woman with hair and eyes lighter than her skin”
        owner of the Tower restaurant the family stops at
        A good man in the grandmother’s mind, although she says this in response to his gullibility
        a very talkative and opinionated woman; is nostalgic for the past
        She brings up the fact that there are no good men left whenever she can.
        She holds herself to this idea that she is “a lady.”
        She is critical of everyone around her, but never herself.
      2. John Wesley and June Star
        John Wesley – “a stocky child with glasses”; obnoxious
        June Star – obnoxious like her brother; makes blunt observations
    2. unnamed mother of the three children
      1. “a young woman in slacks, whose face was as broad and innocent as a cabbage and was tied around with a green head-kerchief that had two points on the top like a rabbit’s ears.”
        She doesn’t say much in the story. Most of the time she is mentioned closely with the family’s small baby.
  2. The head of the family who must deal with his frustrating mother.
    1. “He didn’t have a naturally sunny disposition like she did and trips made him nervous.”
      1. “He had on a yellow sport shirt with bright blue parrots designed in it and his face was as yellow as the shirt.”
Plot Overview
1. A family is traveling by car from Georgia to Florida.
  1. Before they leave the grandmother attempts to convince her son that they should go to Tennessee instead.
    1. She shows him a newspaper story about an escaped criminal called The Misfit. It is reported that he is headed to Florida.
      1. The grandmother goes to the car before anyone else to hide her cat in the car so she can take it with.
        The family leaves; while driving the children occupy themselves with comic books, the grandmother provides plenty of unwanted commentary.
        They stop at The Tower outside of a town called Timothy to eat barbecue sandwiches.
        Further on into their trip, they are near Toombsboro when the grandmother remembers a beautiful house she used to visit when she was young. Bailey agrees to visit the house.
        As they are headed down the dirt road to the house, the grandmother realizes that the house they are looking for is actually in Tennessee.
        She is so embarrassed and startled that she accidentally upsets the basket holding her hidden cat with her feet.
        The cat flies out and jumps on the son who is driving. The son loses control of the car and they have an accident. The car flips over violently.
        As the entire family is standing around outside the car, they see a car in the distance.
        A strange assortment of men gets out of the car. The grandmother has the feeling that she recognizes one of them. All of the men have guns.
        Of course, as soon as she realizes it, the grandmother shouts about it being The Misfit.
        As The Misfit has a conversation with the grandmother about religion and how he must come from “good blood,” the entire family is taken into the woods by Bobby Lee and Hiram to be shot.
        The grandmother is desperately telling The Misfit that he is “a good man.” She seems relatively unconcerned by the fact that her entire family is being systematically shot. The Misfit shares about this family and upbringing.
        The grandmother is the last one alive. She and The Misfit have a conversation about Jesus & religion.
        He says that Jesus put the world off balance because he raised the dead.
        The grandmother has a moment where her head clears. This is the climax of the story.
        Her last words are: “Why you’re one of my babies. You’re one of my own children!”
        As she reaches towards The Misfit, he shoots her quickly 3 times. He picks up her cat, which has come to rub itself against his leg.
Main Ideas and Themes
1. Goodness
  1. The grandmother struggles to define a “good man” throughout the story.
    1. She calls Sammy “a good man” because he let 2 people charge gas and swindle him out of money. This aligns “goodness” with poor judgement and blind faith.
      1. Her own goodness is surface-level. –> She dresses herself up so that she can be seen as a lady in case of an accident.
        Other people are good if they think and act like she does.
        Good appearances make her a good person. It is what she uses to appeal to The Misfit. He should not shoot her, because he would not shoot a “lady.”
        Of course, in the end, a good man is hard to find because they don’t really exist.
        People are both good and bad. Their actions are not ‘all good’ or ‘all bad.’
        The Misfit is conventionally a bad man, for example. However, he does have a strong sense of self and holds to his convictions. He has qualities that you would traditionally attribute to “a good man.”
2. Grace
  1. “Why you’re one of my babies. You’re one of my own children.”
    1. Some people disagree about the grandmother’s final words and act. A popular interpretation, however, is that she experiences a moment of grace before she dies.
      1. Prior to this moment, she tries lying, flattering, and begging to avoid her fate.
        Her words can be seen as a recognition that all humanity is connected. The Misfit, despite his crimes, is as familiar to the grandmother as if he were her own son.
        The Misfit already understands this to some extent – that “good men” do not exist. Rather people have both good and evil in them.
        The grandmother, too, is not as good of a person on the inside as she presents herself on the outside.
        Many people read this important moment as the grandmother’s chance for redemption.
        O’Connor writes this moment in a way that shows The Misfit recoiling from the old lady as she reaches to touch him. –> perhaps this is some divine truth
3. Moral Codes/Moral Decay
  1. Both the grandmother and The Misfit have different moral codes – ways that they conduct themselves in the world.
    1. The grandmother has built hers upon the notion of herself as a lady – it is based on appearances. She is blind to her faults, too.
      1. Her morals are flimsy – she calls herself pious, but almost forgets how to pray when confronted with a crisis and questions her faith.
        The Misfit proves to have done a lot of deep thinking about life and religion and himself.
        He lives with a moral code of violence. And he holds steady to that moral code, even when the grandmother tries to appeal to him in many ways.
        The entire story also hinges on this idea of moral decay in the world.
        Good men are getting harder to find. Sammy remembers a time when you could leave a door unlocked without worry. This is not possible anymore.
        The idea of moral decay fits into O’Connor's depiction of the American South.
        The grandmother remembers her past growing up in the South with a kind of longing, as though she and her moral code would fit in better.
4. Nostalgia
  1. The grandmother longs for the way things were in the past.
    1. Other characters – Sammy and The Misfit – also talk about the past fondly.
      1. It was easier to find good men in the past. It is also harder to be good.
        The grandmother tells the children a story about a suitor from her youth.
        She regrets not marrying Mr. Edgar Adkins Teagarden, because he was a gentleman (and later got really wealthy).
        Sammy and the grandmother agree that it was easier to find people to trust in the past.
        The Misfit cannot remember doing the crimes that he has been punished for.
        He is also somewhat regretful that he wasn’t around to see Jesus raise the dead – like he would be good if he had some reassurance.
Symbols
1. Bailey’s Yellow and Blue Parrot Shirt
  1. The grandmother twice compares her son’s shirt to something related to him.
    1. Yellow like his face
      1. Blue like his eyes
        When Bobby Lee brings back the shirt (taken from Bailey before he was shot), the grandmother suddenly can’t think of what it reminds her of.
2. The Grandmother’s Hat
  1. The grandmother’s hat is the part of her outfit mentioned from the beginning of the car trip until after the accident.
    1. It remains pinned to her head after the accident, but the brim is broken.
      1. The thing she values most – her superficial status as a lady – is much flimsier than she anticipated.
        And as her son is led into the woods, she tries to adjust the brim. It falls off in her hands and she lets it drop.
        This perhaps shows her coming realization about her personal failings and the beginning of her acceptance of something else.

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