In O’Connor’s “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” decide whether the Grandmother or the Misfit is good and defend your answer with an example or two from the story.
The Misfit was a complicated character, but he was good deep within his soul. He was wrongly accused of the crime of killing his father, although his father died from complications from the flu. Ultimately, the Misfit spent time in prison which gave birth to bitterness and made him question what was right and wrong. He claimed, "I was never a bad boy, that I remember of... but somewheres along the line I done something wrong and got sent to the penitentiary" (150). He also spoke with the grandma about the validity of Jesus and admitted, "... if I had been there I would have known and …show more content…
John was a respected physician and appears to have the best intentions in mind during the care of his wife. She was experiencing post-partem depression following childbirth, and her condition was slowly deteriorating by the day. He decided the best medicine was to isolate her from others. She disagreed and believed that social interaction, but John dictates that his medical understanding of human conditions outweighed her beliefs. She is moved into a room that was once a nursery and she realized that the room has been designed to minimize any chance of self-mutilation. She has a window that allowed view of a garden and her walls were covered in a yellow wallpaper. She is confined to this room for days on end and John has very little interaction with her. She attempted to find relief in writing, but John disagreed and told her that it would provide little help. The extended isolation began to cause her to imagine grand scenes within the wallpaper and within the garden. As time passed, she began to find her own gain her own power within her mind. She played the role as a submissive patient, but internally she knew that was going to break free. John informed her that she had one night remaining before going back to their old home, but she would have to spend the final night in the room. She decided to take this chance to take power from John and control her destiny instead having another control her life. The following morning, she locked the door and hung herself as John attempted to enter the room. She exclaims, "I've got out at last, in spite of you and Jane. And I've pulled off most of the paper, so you can't put me back!" (559). She reclaimed the power over John by killing herself and destroying the cage that she had been placed into for so long. John fainted when he finally broke into the room and saw
The Misfit was a complicated character, but he was good deep within his soul. He was wrongly accused of the crime of killing his father, although his father died from complications from the flu. Ultimately, the Misfit spent time in prison which gave birth to bitterness and made him question what was right and wrong. He claimed, "I was never a bad boy, that I remember of... but somewheres along the line I done something wrong and got sent to the penitentiary" (150). He also spoke with the grandma about the validity of Jesus and admitted, "... if I had been there I would have known and …show more content…
John was a respected physician and appears to have the best intentions in mind during the care of his wife. She was experiencing post-partem depression following childbirth, and her condition was slowly deteriorating by the day. He decided the best medicine was to isolate her from others. She disagreed and believed that social interaction, but John dictates that his medical understanding of human conditions outweighed her beliefs. She is moved into a room that was once a nursery and she realized that the room has been designed to minimize any chance of self-mutilation. She has a window that allowed view of a garden and her walls were covered in a yellow wallpaper. She is confined to this room for days on end and John has very little interaction with her. She attempted to find relief in writing, but John disagreed and told her that it would provide little help. The extended isolation began to cause her to imagine grand scenes within the wallpaper and within the garden. As time passed, she began to find her own gain her own power within her mind. She played the role as a submissive patient, but internally she knew that was going to break free. John informed her that she had one night remaining before going back to their old home, but she would have to spend the final night in the room. She decided to take this chance to take power from John and control her destiny instead having another control her life. The following morning, she locked the door and hung herself as John attempted to enter the room. She exclaims, "I've got out at last, in spite of you and Jane. And I've pulled off most of the paper, so you can't put me back!" (559). She reclaimed the power over John by killing herself and destroying the cage that she had been placed into for so long. John fainted when he finally broke into the room and saw