In “A Good Man is Hard to Find” the tone changes dramatically from humorous to sinister. The family is ridiculed by the author in what they say, do, act, wear and even physical features. Expanding on the tone of the characters that were depicted by the narrator, has added effect to the story. Flannery O’Connor’s contrasting styles of tone in “A Good Man is Hard to Find” has an extensive impact in the development of the story. Extensive is the “large in spatial extent or range or scope or quantity” ("extensive." Definitions.net.) and Flannery O’Connor expresses the extensivity of tone in the short story she wrote called “A Good Man is Hard to Find.” There is much contrasting in the tone of the narrator as the story progresses, there is a
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The story starts out with a family trying to go on a vacation. The narrator makes the family seem as if they are a typical family. Flannery furtively makes the tone comical only to deceive us from the true ending. Some of the comic relief she added were in the dialogue, "Tennessee is just a hillbilly dumping ground," John Wesley said, "and Georgia is a lousy state too.” (266). This comment was made by one of the children of the family. We may find this amusing when somebody insults another state or even their own. There is another comment made by the same child and little John Wesley hilariously challenging The Misfit by saying “I’d smack his face” (265). As we learned, The Misfit is a dangerous man who escaped the penitentiary. John Wesley is only a kid and you can agree we can find a chuckle out of a kid who thinks they can beat someone who is older and tougher. The narrator starts to set a gloomy and terrifying tone to the story, once the family gets into a car wreck and a suspicious car slowly stops in a lone road. Then comes The Misfit and the other explanations of the …show more content…
We can sense how the author wanted to depict each character in the family. The author is making fun of the characters and is not very serious. She does not show any sympathy toward any of them. They way Flannery describes the grandmother, the parents and the children, are given ridiculous physical features. The mother’s face was compared to a head of lettuce, which is far from a complement. “Broad and innocent as a cabbage...tied around with a green head-kerchief that had two points on the top like a rabbit's ears”(265). The narrator said the valise of the grandmother, looked like the head of a hippopotamus. Once The Misfit appears, the family blindly agree with him to go in the woods alone, the mother is left behind. As we hear a gunshot, the mother is let in the woods after her family. The narrator made them very naive. The grandmother is left with The Misfit and all of a sudden he is described as being a gentleman despite of his crimes. Could that have been a symbol of how we perceive some humans? The most innocent looking person can be the most deadly, than those who look destitute or even peculiar. What if the friendliest person you can ever meet has tattoos and piercing and the meanest can be those who do not have those things. Flannery O’Connor had a purpose in writing her story in such an aberrational way. She distracted us from what was actually going on with deride comments about the characters, especially
The story starts out with a family trying to go on a vacation. The narrator makes the family seem as if they are a typical family. Flannery furtively makes the tone comical only to deceive us from the true ending. Some of the comic relief she added were in the dialogue, "Tennessee is just a hillbilly dumping ground," John Wesley said, "and Georgia is a lousy state too.” (266). This comment was made by one of the children of the family. We may find this amusing when somebody insults another state or even their own. There is another comment made by the same child and little John Wesley hilariously challenging The Misfit by saying “I’d smack his face” (265). As we learned, The Misfit is a dangerous man who escaped the penitentiary. John Wesley is only a kid and you can agree we can find a chuckle out of a kid who thinks they can beat someone who is older and tougher. The narrator starts to set a gloomy and terrifying tone to the story, once the family gets into a car wreck and a suspicious car slowly stops in a lone road. Then comes The Misfit and the other explanations of the …show more content…
We can sense how the author wanted to depict each character in the family. The author is making fun of the characters and is not very serious. She does not show any sympathy toward any of them. They way Flannery describes the grandmother, the parents and the children, are given ridiculous physical features. The mother’s face was compared to a head of lettuce, which is far from a complement. “Broad and innocent as a cabbage...tied around with a green head-kerchief that had two points on the top like a rabbit's ears”(265). The narrator said the valise of the grandmother, looked like the head of a hippopotamus. Once The Misfit appears, the family blindly agree with him to go in the woods alone, the mother is left behind. As we hear a gunshot, the mother is let in the woods after her family. The narrator made them very naive. The grandmother is left with The Misfit and all of a sudden he is described as being a gentleman despite of his crimes. Could that have been a symbol of how we perceive some humans? The most innocent looking person can be the most deadly, than those who look destitute or even peculiar. What if the friendliest person you can ever meet has tattoos and piercing and the meanest can be those who do not have those things. Flannery O’Connor had a purpose in writing her story in such an aberrational way. She distracted us from what was actually going on with deride comments about the characters, especially