A major theme of Flannery O 'Connor 's “A Good Man Is Hard To Find” is what makes a person good. There is no clear answer, neither in the text nor in life. It is safe to say that a good person can be defined as one that is honest, kind, and always tries to do what is right. It is ironic then, maybe even a bit hypocritical, that the Grandmother is one of the most immoral characters in the story and yet she spends much of her time talking about what makes people good, judging others based on little to no information about them, and trying to convince the Misfit, a serial killer that just murdered her family, of his own goodness. The Grandmother is not a good person, by any standards. The story opens with her trying to emotionally manipulate
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The Grandmother knows that Bailey will refuse to go to the plantation so she then decides to lie about the secret panel to get the children 's attention (Bloom). This works and she sits back and watches as the children scream and cause such a commotion that Bailey has to agree to go to the plantation just to get the children to calm down. The Grandmother is pleased with herself until she realizes that the plantation is in Tennessee but when she does, she does not tell the family that they can turn around. She lets them keep driving on the dangerous road because she 's too embarrassed to admit her …show more content…
This shows that it is intentional that O 'Connor wrote the Grandmother to not be a good person. By having another character state that the Grandmother was not good, the point of the story is reinforced. This is not a story that is meant to scare the reader with the shocking violence, nor is it meant to make the reader laugh with it 's comedic scenes. This is a story of an awful woman that is so caught up in judging others and believing that she should be the one deciding if a person is good or not that she is unable to see the wrongness in herself. “A Good Man Is Hard To Find” sends the message that one should not be so quick to judge others, especially when one is not a very good person
The Grandmother knows that Bailey will refuse to go to the plantation so she then decides to lie about the secret panel to get the children 's attention (Bloom). This works and she sits back and watches as the children scream and cause such a commotion that Bailey has to agree to go to the plantation just to get the children to calm down. The Grandmother is pleased with herself until she realizes that the plantation is in Tennessee but when she does, she does not tell the family that they can turn around. She lets them keep driving on the dangerous road because she 's too embarrassed to admit her …show more content…
This shows that it is intentional that O 'Connor wrote the Grandmother to not be a good person. By having another character state that the Grandmother was not good, the point of the story is reinforced. This is not a story that is meant to scare the reader with the shocking violence, nor is it meant to make the reader laugh with it 's comedic scenes. This is a story of an awful woman that is so caught up in judging others and believing that she should be the one deciding if a person is good or not that she is unable to see the wrongness in herself. “A Good Man Is Hard To Find” sends the message that one should not be so quick to judge others, especially when one is not a very good person