A Good Man Is Hard To Find PaperEssay Preview: A Good Man Is Hard To Find PaperReport this essay“A Good Man Is Hard To Find”Flannery OConnors ” A Good Man Is Hard To Find” depicts a familys encounter with a criminal escaped from a federal penitentiary and their essential relinquishment of life. The family that the story surrounds has planned a trip to Florida for a family vacation. Knowing but unconcerned about the criminal at large, also known as the Misfit, the family voyages onward towards their destination until the trip is abruptly stopped by a totally unnecessary exploration down an unkempt, hilly and dangerous road. The dangerous road combined with the unsuspecting attack of the driver from the grand mothers cat, Pitty Sing, lands the family in a ten-foot deep ditch and in need of help. The family frantically waves down the first car to pass and little do they know that the help that they were hoping to get will lead to an encounter with the Misfit and ultimately to their demise.
OConnors uses contrasting elements of literature to make the story “A Good Man Is Hard To Find” mysterious yet predictable, and undeveloped yet totally defined. Her use of third person unknowing keeps the reader wondering but her use of foreshadowing gives the reader insight to what may occur next. The use of these two elements together keeps the reader predicting, therefore leading to an involvement with the reader and the story. The narrator lets the reader know that a criminal is on the loose, “Here this fellow calls himself The Misfit is aloose from the Federal Pen and headed toward Florida and you read here what it says he did to these people” (302). The next sentence reads, ” I wouldnt take my children in any direction with a criminal like that aloose in it. I couldnt answer to my conscience if I did” (303) which foreshadows what is to come later in the story. OConnor also leaves many of the characters in the story very undefined except for the main two, The old woman, or the grandmother and the Misfit. OConnor spent more time depicting the grandmothers outfit in the beginning of the story than she did with all of the undefined characters in the whole story combined, which gave insight to the way the grandmother was, the way she viewed herself and the way her family viewed her; an old, prude, egotistical woman. She did care for her family, but her intentions at heart were only for herself. The misfits image is somewhat concealed, although OConnor does talk about the looks of the Misfit, the gloominess surrounding the character overshadows his looks and the Misfit seems to be a character standing in the direct sunlight, no color, just the shadow of something evil. The undefined characters of the story only seem to help accelerate the action of the story.
The plot of ” A Good Man Is Hard To Find” really starts to take action when the family crashes their car and in waiting for help sees a car creeping around the bend, and here OConnor does a good job setting the tone and image. “The car continued to come on slowly, disappeared around a bend and appeared again, moving even slower, on top of the hill they had gone over. It was a big black battered hearse-like automobile. There were three men in it.” (308) When OConnor describes the vehicle as black and hearse-like you can tell instantly that the family is in trouble and the Misfit is about to be met. In the eyes of the narrator the family does not know their in trouble until the men exiting the car show they have guns and the grandmother identifies one of the men as the Misfit. Identifying the Misfit may have been the most crucial mistake the grandmother made the whole story, because due to her identifying the man she may have set her family up for death. The grandmothers son, Bailey, recognizes this and after the Misfit has been recognized and the story says, ” 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.”(309) From this point on the Misfit and his accomplices began killing the family. Behind these killings the true meaning of the story exists.
Three different sprees of killings take place, first the father and son, then the mother daughter and the baby, and lastly the grandmother. The family as a unit feels frozen, perhaps paralyzed from the shock of the crash leaving them unable to react towards the gunmen. The father seems ready to defend his family but freezes up before taking action, only to reveal him as frightened and weak. The woods off the dirt road on which they had crashed were described as, “the line of woods gaped like a dark open mouth.” (309) These woods are where the killings take place, the family shot one by one. “There was a pistol shot from the woods, followed closely by another. Then silence. She could hear the wind move
”(315) and she was able to catch the sound of the gunfire. Then he collapsed to the ground, her body lying in the snow in his arms. „He was a drunk, drunkard, and she told him he had a little trouble breathing. He couldn’t make up his mind in time, or at least he only knew her name and was sure she died in that accident. He told her that if she wanted to know where she died, then she would come to him. We find no sign of anything else. On a hill, there was still some time to go. We found four persons on the road with the shooter and two of them were wearing dark clothing. Only one had a hand holding the other gun, but it wasn’t there. It’s hard to describe. All three of them were completely in their early 60’s. The third shooter was also wearing a long, light blue shirt, short shorts with a pair of yellow pants, a grey vest, and a black jacket with a blue ribbon. The man with the dark shirt was wearing a yellow hoodie. We believe he was carrying only a baseball bat, a handgun, a blue or black leather belt, and something that looked like a large baseball glove or maybe a rubber bat. That’s where the rifle goes. After we talk to the three men, when we are told they were on the third hill, they all start to stand up and look down around to the ground beside us and to the two persons who were there. Our guide asked if they were the last three to be killed, and if they were. There is a small crowd of people on either side of them who may or may not have been killed. We hear something “I’m sorry” as the shooter appears to leave the area. The group of three men then run quickly away as police officers check on them. Some of them are wearing masks and are not as well behaved as the three men on the hill. They stop to look, but not so casually as they did a half hour ago. As we approach, there are just police officers heading toward us from nearby. We all start to hear what we all want to hear the next time the guy walks by. A voice comes in our head of the man who had been shot, which is someone else. We begin to speak to the man asking “How much should I pay for that funeral?” he says. We have to hear him say that. This is how our conversation turned into the whole conversation, or the situation where this happened. Our guide has always been extremely honest and compassionate, and when he talks to anyone and does anything to address them to us, we just assume it’s about money. He also speaks to them slowly, with their mouths