The story of “A Good Man is Hard to Find” by Flannery O’Connor is one that touches on a variety of ideas. O’Connor opens his story describing the lifestyle of a family of six about to go on a road trip to Florida. A recurring theme throughout this story is that of selfishness. This is immediately clear when O’Connor describes the grandmother’s disrespectful son, the disrespectful grandchildren and also the grandmother’s egocentric mindset. As the story reaches it’s climax, the family is under the evil power of “The Misfit”, a notorious criminal, when the family’s car crashes on the road. Here, the family is frightened, rightfully so, of an even more treacherous individual. As the Misfit and his accomplices divide the family to kill them in the forest, the grandmother is left to have a bone chilling conversation with this serial killer. As she hears the gunshots that put her loved ones to death, the grandmother does not immediately feel remorse, but instead continues to only care for herself. “Jesus!” the old lady cried. “You’ve got good blood! I know you wouldn’t shoot a lady!” (O’Connor, Pg. 30) Rather than caring about the deaths of her family members, the grandmother only cares about herself until the moment before The Misfit guns her down himself. Immediately after he kills her, The Misfit, a horrible person in his own right, relays a truthful message to his companions. “She would of been a good woman,” The Misfit said, “if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life.” (O’Connor, Pg. 32) Here, O’Connor effectively raises the idea that selfishness in life only leads to a horrible end, using The Misfit as a key example.
A technique O’Connor uses towards the end of the story is empathy felt by the audience. Although by the time the family is under the control of the murderous crew of The Misfit we as an audience know that the family is not made up of good people. But yet, we feel compassion for them still because they are human beings in a situation of absolute terror. We as an audience are unable to fathom this predicament in which the grandmother is in, and O’Connor effectively makes us aware of the severity of the situation. “There were two more pistol reports and the grandmother raised her head like a parched old turkey hen crying for water and called, ‘Bailey Boy, Bailey Boy!’ as if her heart would break.” (O’Connor, Pg. 31) Here, O’Connor brings the scene to life and fills his audience with emotion as he describes the grandmother’s raw emotion and realization of what is happening. By doing this, O’Connor allows the audience to feel a part of the story, which could have been his point all along.
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