A Good Man Is Hard To Find Grandmother Essay

Improved Essays
The main character in the story A Good Man Is Hard to Find, is the grandmother. In the story the grandmother plays the role of a liar, self-centered, coward, and stubborn, manipulative woman. The grandmother lives with her only son, who has a family of his own. She is a typical human being, she voices her own opinions and did not stop at anything when she wanted thing done her way. Though she was a tough nut to crack, she has a soft heart. She was a caring mother, though she showed it towards the end of the story. When everyone except for her is murdered and suddenly she remembers her only son Bailey.
In the beginning of the story, the grandmother tries to manipulate the family’s decision of spending their vacation in Florida. She wanted to go to East Tennessee. In trying to change her son’s decisions, she tries to scared him with
…show more content…
She’s the type to over dress, just in case something was to happen to her on the way. On their way to Florida, the family passed by an old plantation in which the grandmother remembers from when she was young. She remembers a six column white house that was along the way. Being the liar that she is, she tries to convince her son and the children to go and see the house that she so called remember. While driving through the dirt road, the grandmother realizes that the settlement was in Tennessee. She was too embarrass to tell the family. Therefore, she allowed them to go on their way to nowhere and they ended up having an accident.
In the recognition scene the grandmother shows her true colors. Throughout the end of the story she shows how much of a coward and self-centered woman she really is. She is the reason for her family’s death. If only she didn’t recognize the Misfit. Even if she did recognize him, she should have open her mouth. All the way through this scene, being the self-centered woman she was; she is tries to convince the Misfit not to kill her. While forgetting about her entire

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    In many stories authors use side characters to portray certain ideas or concepts that they want to be presented in their stories. In the short story “A Good Man is Hard to Find” by Flannery O Connor, the characters John Wesley and June Star help us understand the idea of generational gap and disrespect to the older generations. Examples of this idea is costly brought up throughout the story and helps us as the reader understand the discrepancies between two very different generations. From the beginning of the story were are introduced to family that are on a road trip going to Florida.…

    • 718 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Although there are many things an individual can take from the short story “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” there is no denying that religion is the most important theme. The grandmother is a picture perfect example of an individual who gives the appearance that she is living a Christian lifestyle but in fact she is far from it. It is often said that the same individual praying for you with one hand is using the other hand to stab you in the back. The Grandmother portrays such nasty behavior throughout the story it is hard to believe she has herself truly convinced she is a Christian woman.…

    • 1282 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The grandmother, one of the main characters in “A Good Man is Hard to Find”, displays herself as a good Christian woman. However, at the end of the story she didn’t depict any characteristics of sympathy, instead she showed that she was an egotistical woman who only looked out for her own wellbeing. Her self-interest causes her to manipulate people into doing what she wants. When the family was being murdered…

    • 291 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The reason she is going back and forth is to make sure a man named Rufus lives long enough to give birth to her great grandmother and secured her bloodline. When she goes back to the 1800’s, she is in Baltimore, Maryland where slavery existed. Rufus was still a boy when she first traveled there. He was the son of the plantation owner. His…

    • 593 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    When she travels to the 1800s, she gets a feel of what its like to live as a slave. As she first…

    • 1158 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    A ‘’Good Man Is Hard to Find’’, by Flannery O’Conner is a story with an unexpected murder in the end. The story follows a family of six coming down from Georgia to visit Florida. The members of the family are grandmother, Bailey as the father, mother of the children, John Wesley, June Star, and the baby. This story is filled with strong imagery, irony, and flashbacks. All of these elements supported the foreshadowing in the text.…

    • 741 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Throughout “A Good Man Is Hard to Find”, a half of the content describes a family traveling. O’Connor describes grandmother a lot in the story. The grandmother is a humorously themed character reflected on her travel clothes such as “the grandmother had on a navy blue straw sailor hat with a bunch of white violets on the brim and a navy blue dress with a small white dot in the print.” The grandmother’s hypocrisy reflect in dress and manner. The grandmother wants to show her the identity of the nobility ladies.…

    • 1113 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Explication of “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” is a very interesting short story. The story starts with a grandmother trying to talk his son into going to Tennessee instead of Florida for a family trip. She tells the son about The Misfit who escaped prison who is going toward Florida. The family disagrees with the grandmother and they end up going to Florida.…

    • 1871 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    In Flannery O’Conner’s, “A Good Man’s Hard to Find”, contains a quote at the end of the story that may make readers rethink their opinion on the misfit and the grandmother in the story. The Misfit states “She would have been a good woman, if someone was there to shoot her every day of her life”. So what does the Misfit really mean by this comment? Well you have to look at several different variables, one being what kind of person the misfit is, two what kind of person the grandmother is, and lastly what the Misfit’s true intent was for his comment towards the grandmother.…

    • 1364 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    We often focus more on the protagonist of stories, but what about the antagonist? Reading all three of the short stories Where Have You Been by Joyce Carol Oates, A Good Man is Hard to Find by Flannery O’Connor, and A Rose for Emily by William Faulkner, they all expand the idea of the “bad guy.” The antagonists are the ones that truly develop the situation of stories, because without them there wouldn't be a conflict, or a story in general... At least not an interesting one to say the most.…

    • 869 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    A good man is hard to find is a saying, which some use to show their frustration from constantly meeting the wrong types of men. Only wanting to be loved some of us tend to find it in the wrong places. After a bad relationship, we begin to question is there any such thing as a good man? This brings me to a reading by Flannery O’ Connor, “A Good Man Is Hard to Find”. In this writing she uses the words “good man” several times.…

    • 976 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” by Flannery O’Connor, the grandmother is a lady who believes that she is morally superior to others. The grandmother believes that she is a good Christian lady and that there are not that many good people around anymore. She is closed minded, selfish, and not very self-observant. Whenever there is an opportunity to criticize someone or something the grandmother takes it. She has her own definition of good, a way of how things should be done, and expects the world to meet her expectations.…

    • 1210 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In the end of the story, the grandmother redeems herself at the barrel of a gun held by a violent criminal. The ending of the story suggests that for a women to be able to redeem herself, she needs a man. This story casts the grandmother as being a crazy, delusional and an emotional wreck who must depend on her male child to get by. The grandmother is a very proper lady who demonstrates the idea that women are something to be looked at as she dressed in elaborate southern lady-like clothing simply to sit in a car through a road trip. Much like Barn Burning, all the women in A Good Man is Hard to Find remain nameless.…

    • 1223 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    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…

    • 1352 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    She was afraid that they would come in contact with The Misfit, which was a serial killer. On the way to Florida the grandmother insisted on going to a plantation she once knew, when she was younger. She manipulated the kids into wanted to visit the plantation. She lied about secret passages on the plantation where they kept the family’s silver. The children then begged to the parent to visit the plantation.…

    • 829 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays