A Good Man is Hard to Find Essay Example for Free

A Good Man is Hard to Find Essay In Flannery O’Connor’s story A Good Man is Hard to Find the title illustrates the changing times and how progressively from the grandmother’s perspective, the future is quite different from the past; in which the grandmother believes that the past presented people with a much simpler way of life and the future is not as decadent and is too complex. The title also refers to the interchange between the grandmother and the Misfit at the end of the story. The Misfit is a man who was has recently escaped from prison. When the grandmother and the Misfit meet up on a country road after the grandmother’s family has been in a car wreck the Misfit and his gang take care of the family, with the Misfit killing the grandmother last. The title of the book bears relevance to this in a foreshadowing manner in that the ideals that the grandmother tries to uphold and apply to the Misfit bear no relevance in reality; for her, the title connotes that the past is unattainable; a good man is hard to find means that the world is changing rapidly and her reference towards life is outdated. For the Misfit the reader can foreshadow how the title connotes his childhood and how he simply was borne bad and that the object of a good man being hard to find entails the psycho-socio-balance that cannot exist rightly in any man seemingly. Furthermore, the title foreshadows in a way how the world has lapsed in faith; both the grandmother and the Misfit have a lack of faith in anything, and as O’Connor has written the story she adds in her touch of personality, If you would pray, the old lady said, Jesus would help you. Thats right, The Misfit said. Well then, why dont you pray? she asked trembling with delight suddenly. I dont want no hep, he said. Im doing all right by myself. (O’Connor A Good Man is Hard to Find 11). Thus, when the Misfit admits that he likes who is, or at least does not want to go around changing who he is, it is O’Connor’s omission that there is no such thing as a saint, as a good man and thus the impetus for the title is found, and all of the foreshadowing can be found in this title for the reader. The theme of the book is progression; progress from a former state of being to a later state of being which is shown succinctly with the car trip, the drive down the country road to a house which does not exist in that state and finally with the family facing their death at the pistol end of the Misfit and his gang. It is through this theme of progression that the reader may also connote foreshadowing because with this progress, the family cannot expect to stay the same, and since the grandmother is a character so set in her ways, the only way for her to change in the story is through death. This theme of progress goes into detail with the characterization of the Misfit. The Misfit, like the grandmother denies the theme of progression, which is also a foreshadowing in the story as the reader knows the Misfit’s character will not change and thus, will kill the family, because if he doesn’t kill the family it’s a sign of progression and change. While the grandmother clings wholeheartedly to the past, the Misfit does this as well. The grandmother changes by dying and the Misfit stays the same by killing the grandmother and the family. I call myself The Misfit, he said, because I cant make what all I done wrong fit what all I gone through in punishment. (O’Connor A Good Man is Hard to Find 11). Thus, the Misfit is stating that his future does not match his expectations, and his progression as a person has stalled and his stuck being the Misfit which incidentally is a name he designed and applied to himself to further exemplify that he is without development and surely, as represented in O’Connor’s story a man without hope of change. O’Connor’s story subsequently allows the reader to find out that what the grandmother and Misfit’s true crime is that they fear change and thus that is their sin. O’Connor’s story is a tale told about redemption; or rather the lack of redemption. Neither the grandmother nor the Misfit feel morally remiss about their actions or their attitude towards things, such as crime and killing for the Misfit and racism and prejudices for the grandmother. By allowing these characters to be recalcitrant toward the theme of progression she is making the characters human which is not often done in novels or short stories. O’Connor’s approach to characterization makes for the story to have a lot of gumption in its writing style and subject matter. By including the ‘dirtier’ side of life, such as biases and murdering O’Connor is allowing the story to shape within a paradigm of humanity which must by its nature be inclusive of both good and bad, and O’Connor is an expert in the writing of the yin and yang as it were. Work Cited O’Conner, Flannery. A Good Man is Hard to Find. Harvest Books, New York. 1977.