In the story “A Good Man is Hard to Find” Flannery O’Connor takes the reader on an adventure across the state of Georgia with a disconnected family who is headed to Florida for a family vacation. The story begins with the grandmother is trying to get her son, Bailey, to change his mind and go to Tennessee instead, when she reads a newspaper article about a prison escapee, she begins to try to lay a guilt trip on Bailey but this tactic does not work and the family begins their journey to Florida anyway. By letting the reader in the car with the family, O’Connor allows the audience to get an up close look and experience the events that take place and lead up to the unfortunate situation that the family finds themselves in. From beginning to the
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Bailey is the one that decides that the family is going to go to Florida and not Tennessee for their vacation, he is also the one that gets to decide if they go to the old house. Another stereotype that the author give to Bailey is that he is the one that tries to control situations that come up, for example after the family wrecks their car and the Misfit approaches them Bailey tries to take control of the situation by saying to his family “Hush!...Hush! Everybody shut up and let me handle this” (O’Conner 414). Traditional roles do not escape the children either, John Wesley is shown to be the aggressor in the story, when the grandmother asks him what he would do if he would unfortunately meet up with the Misfit his reply is “ I’d smack his face” (405). Even when riding in the car on the way to Florida John Wesley show aggression when he begins kicking the backseat of the car as a way to get his father to agree to go to the old plantation home that grandmother has been talking about. Throughout the story the little boy never shows either his grandmother, his parents, an even the Misfit no real respect he even has a distain for losing to his sister in a game that they made up in the car, these are examples of how some men in this time period believe they could behave. The idea that they could have no respect for anyone or losing to a girl was beneath them in some was a mindset that was prevalent in that time
Bailey is the one that decides that the family is going to go to Florida and not Tennessee for their vacation, he is also the one that gets to decide if they go to the old house. Another stereotype that the author give to Bailey is that he is the one that tries to control situations that come up, for example after the family wrecks their car and the Misfit approaches them Bailey tries to take control of the situation by saying to his family “Hush!...Hush! Everybody shut up and let me handle this” (O’Conner 414). Traditional roles do not escape the children either, John Wesley is shown to be the aggressor in the story, when the grandmother asks him what he would do if he would unfortunately meet up with the Misfit his reply is “ I’d smack his face” (405). Even when riding in the car on the way to Florida John Wesley show aggression when he begins kicking the backseat of the car as a way to get his father to agree to go to the old plantation home that grandmother has been talking about. Throughout the story the little boy never shows either his grandmother, his parents, an even the Misfit no real respect he even has a distain for losing to his sister in a game that they made up in the car, these are examples of how some men in this time period believe they could behave. The idea that they could have no respect for anyone or losing to a girl was beneath them in some was a mindset that was prevalent in that time