A Good Man Is Hard To Find Summary

A Good Man is Hard to Find is an unexpectedly violent short story written by Flannery O’Connor in 1953. It is about a family who are going on vacation in Florida but The Grandmother insists that they visit Tennessee instead. On the way there it is seen that The Grandmother has hidden her cat away in the car, even though her son disapproves of the cat tagging along. As they are driving The Grandmother tells her grandchildren stories and reminisces on how good she remembers the past being. She manages to convince her son, Bailey, with the help of the children, to go to a house she says she remembers from years ago. As they are driving to the house, the cat jumps from its hiding spot and startles Bailey into crashing the car. They run into the Misfit, who The Grandmother foolishly says she recognizes. The Misfit informs her that she should not have said this and he and his group lead the family into the woods to kill them. Before The Grandmother is killed, though, she has a conversation with the Misfit about religion, and she seems to really only be genuine with wanting him to have salvation in order to save herself. Right before the Misfit shoots her three times, she touches his shoulder and tells him that he is …show more content…
In the ending, though there are questions about faith and doubting faith that are brought to the forefront by The Grandmother and The Misfit. The Grandmother was a selfish person for the majority of the story but by the end she redeemed herself and died with her faith in tact. The Misfit on the other hand embraces doubt, although it seems as if he wants to believe in Jesus, he just can not because he is the type that needs to see it to believe it. In the end both seemed to be changed by the others faith and doubt, with The Grandmother finding her own and The Misfit changing his views of meanness being the only pleasure in life, to there being to real pleasure in