Steps 1-3: A Good Man is Hard to Find

When re-reading 'A Good Man is Hard to Find' the more subtle Christian imagery jumped out at me, such as:

• The grandmother's ridiculous obsession with appearances, "...but the grandmother had on a navy blue straw sailor hat with a bunch of white violets on the brim...In case of an accident, anyone seeing her dead on the highway would know at once that she was a lady." (2776)
• But, when she if faced with  The Misfit, when first confronted with the very real possibility of her death, she withdraws this pretense, "The grandmother reached up to adjust her hat brim as if she were going to the woods with him but it came off in her hand. She stood staring at it and after a second she let it fall on the ground." (2783)  Suddenly, the idea of dying "a lady" doesn't matter anymore.
• "She sank down in the ditch with her legs twisted under her" (2786) She falls down to her knees, almost in prayer.
• "She saw the man's face twisted close to her own..." (2786) This is the first time she is "equal" to The Misfit; at first he is kneeling below her and she literally "...was standing up looking down on him" (2784) and then he is standing above her when she first falls to her knees.  This is the stance they are in when she is killed, equal height.  
• "Then he put his gun down on the ground and took off his glasses and began to clean them."(2786) Like Pontius Pilate washing his hands after whipping Jesus Christ, The Misfit wipes her away.

Did the grandmother have to give up her superficial affectations before she could die a child of God? Was she like the disciples before her, putting away their possessions before they could truly follow Jesus?

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An Action of Grace

I found this little bit quite interesting:


" [Flannery O'Connor] states that the subject of her work is "the action of grace in territory held largely by the devil" (Mystery and Manners 118). She tries to portray in each story "an action that is totally unexpected, yet totally believable" (118), often an act of violence, violence being "the extreme situation that best reveals what we are essentially" (113). Through violence she wants to evoke Christian mystery, though she doesn't exclude other approaches to her fiction: she states that she could not have written "A Good Man Is Hard to Find" in any other way but "there are perhaps other ways than my own in which this story could be read" (109)."

I loved this, and I absolutely had to share it. It's nice to have some quotes from Ms. O'Connor. "A Good Man is Hard to Find" is an amazing story, one that I have read many times. The way O'Connor depicts her characters is chilling. What she gives us is exactly what they explain above, "an action that is totally unexpected, yet totally believable." In the story, the actions of the Misfit do come a bit unexpected. The Grandmother's pleading, one might think, would surely bring this man to reason. Yet, he kills the entire family anyways. The way O'Connor draws it out is what does it. The way she makes the grandmother plea is just frighteningly real feeling. The Christian mystery I think O'Connor was trying to invoke in this story is: what comes of grace? The grandmother spent the beginning of the book being so negative, saying their were no good men anymore. This is the view she holds until the final pages of the book. She tells the Misfit he must surely be a good man. Then, in her final moments, as she is breaking down, looking for some kind of answer, she reaches out and touches the Misfit. Now, why she does this is what I have wondered for some time. In my opinion, it's the grandmother trying to shed some grace onto the Misfit. She's in a way, almost trying to save him. I think this moment in the story is quite beautiful. The way I imagine it as I read it is just a woman who doesn't want to die, but also doesn't want this man to suffer. I think the grandmother would have wanted that grace to enter him, to change his ways. Yet, I don't think it would have ended up that way. 

"Flannery O'Connor (1925-1964)" Beverly Lyon Clark. 
http://college.cengage.com/english/heath/syllabuild/iguide/oconnor.html

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What Happened to Respect Your Elders

I read a few posts before writing this because I don't want to sound redundant and write about the same thing as everyone else. I feel bad for the grandmother in this story, someone wrote about her not appreciating her son but honestly I got the impression she wasn't appreciated. Your elders should be held to a high esteem for a multitude of reasons but two important ones being that they have life experience and that they are closer to the ends of their lives and that should be understood. I don't think this family cares much for their grandmother. Bailey is kind of a dick, it's not the grandmother's fault she recognized the Misfit and pointed it out. She wasn't intentionally trying to have her family slaughter but Bailey reacted in such a hate filled way that even the Misfit felt poorly of the way she was treated. "'Lady,' he said, 'don't get upset. Sometimes a man says things he don't mean. I don't think he meant to talk to you thataway."' (O'Conner 2782). For the killer to have to console the grandmother for the way her son spoke to her is upsetting, and I feel terribly for her. Not just how her son treated her and her fear of his reaction to her having been the one that lead them down the wrong road and brought the cat but the way the children treated her and their elders of the community. When June Star tells Red Sam that she wouldn't want to live in a run down home like his that's awful, my mother would slap me across the face if I spoke so terribly to someone that was just trying to pay me a compliment. The lack of respect for elders is insane. It's understandable why the grandmother longed for the good old days, in that time she probably felt more appreciated and less like someone that her family just had to deal with.

I know from living with my grandparents that they can be a pain, I understand that my own mom and dad can get on my nerves under extenuating circumstances but does that excuse Bailey's behavior? Is it okay for your children to behave as John Wesley and June Star do in public and to their grandmother? I know everyones raised differently but I can never imagine talking to my grandmother with a disrespectful tone whether or not she was staying with us.

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Rant About "A Good Man is Hard to Find,"

Although there are a lot of things to say about "A Good Man is Hard to Find," I really just wanted to rant about a specific part that stuck out to me. When the grandmother talks about how much better times used to be, it really got me thinking about the modern context of the statement. This was written in the fifties, the "Happy Days" time frame, the time in American History that people talk about in retrospect as if it were this pure and clean decade where everyone was honest, hard working and innocent. But that wasn't the case and I loved that even though the author obviously didn't intend to bring that up since it was written in what at the time was modern context, it brought up the issue that things have always more or less been the same in terms of the quality of people and society. Economically and politically things were great for white suburban families but segregation was still a thing at that point, homosexuality was considered illegal many states, and a lot of people had it unfairly difficult. It wasn't a perfect decade. Things have gotten worse for certain demographics but at the same time evened out for others. I just really wanted to bring this up because I feel like it adds a certain historical context to the piece that probably wasn't intended to be there, but works with everything else in it's own way.

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A Good Man Is Hard To Find by Flannery O'Connor

Bailey mother was trying to keep him from taking his family and her to Florida on vacation.  She had read in the paper that the Misfit was on the loose from the Federal Penn and he was headed toward Florida.  The grandmother(Baileys) mother was trying to tell Bailey and his wife that there children needed to go to different places so that they can explore new things, and learn history.  She also suggested going to Tennessee some place different for  Baileys family and  for her  as well.  Baileys mom wanted to meet up with her friends as well she hadn't seen them in a while.  You would have though that Bailey was a child not a grown man because of the way his mother treated him.  She always went with him and his family on vacation   and where ever they went.  When you look at Baileys  mother  she is from back in the day, when it was said that ladies should always wear dresses, and that their children  should take care of there parents.  As they started out on their journey the children was having such fun with the grandmother, she was keeping them engaged and teaching them about history.  There mother said that they were having fun and is enjoying this trip.  As they went on the grandmother with the help of the children talked Bailey into taking them to see the house that the grand mother grew up in.  After  driving for hours  the grandmother realize they was not the right place.  That caused the cat that she had smuggled on the trip, and caused them to have an accident and run off the road.  During this the car that stopped to help them was the Misfits.  The one they was not trying to come in contact with.  When the grandmother recognized who he was, Bailey tried to get his mother to stop talking but she keep on.  If she would have listen to her son they might be alive today? 

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Sympathy For The Devil

I struggled with this weeks stories for different reasons.  This is the second Flannery O'Connor story I've read and it sat in my gut much like 'Good Country People' did.  She doesn't make it easy for you to see any sort of godliness or read anything anagogically with her work.
As 'The Misfit' lucidly recounted his life's story to the grandmother while his cronies slowly excuted her family I was struck with it's similarity to something written over a decade later.

"I was a gospel singer for a while," The Misfit said. "I been most everything. Been in the arm service both land and sea, at home and abroad, been twict married, been an undertaker, been with the railroads, plowed Mother Earth, been in a tornado, seen a man burnt alive oncet," and he looked up at the children's mother and the little girl who were sitting close together, their faces white and their eyes glassy; "I even seen a woman flogged," he said.

I know in the post by Professor Swindle we learned that O'Connor did not intend for him to be seen as the Devil, but as John Green put it, "I don’t think the characters belong to the writer. An author can talk about his/her own reading of the story, or their intentions, but his/her “opinion” on extra-textual matters is irrelevant...Books belong to their readers".  What I see here is a man outside of the relm of society, whether that's in a physical or spiritual sense.  He's an outsider due to his time in prison and now that he is on the lam, but he can also be seen as someone not entirely a part of the human race.  Lucifer incarnate or a messenger of the devil, The Misfit is not of the same earth as the grandmother, despite her pleadings that he has to be, the he "must be from good people" and that they have "common blood".  

What The Misfit's biography reminds me of is the classic Rolling Stones song, "Sympathy For The Devil" (1968)

Please allow me to introduce myself
I'm a man of wealth and taste
I've been around for a long, long year
Stole many a man's soul and faith
And I was 'round when Jesus Christ
Had his moment of doubt and pain
Made damn sure that Pilate
Washed his hands and sealed his fate
Pleased to meet you
Hope you guess my name
But what's puzzling you
Is the nature of my game
I stuck around St. Petersburg
When I saw it was a time for a change
Killed the czar and his ministers
Anastasia screamed in vain
I rode a tank
Held a general's rank
When the blitzkrieg raged
And the bodies stank

I watched with glee
While your kings and queens
Fought for ten decades
For the gods they made
I shouted out,
"Who killed the Kennedys?"
When after all
It was you and me
Let me please introduce myself
I'm a man of wealth and taste
And I laid traps for troubadours
Who get killed before they reached Bombay

Just as every cop is a criminal
And all the sinners saints
As heads is tails
Just call me Lucifer
Cause I'm in need of some restraint
So if you meet me
Have some courtesy
Have some sympathy, and some taste
Use all your well-learned politesse
Or I'll lay your soul to waste, mmm yeah

I've highlighted some key lines.  What stands out the most to me is the line (and thereby the idea of) "When after all, it was you and me".  This idea that the devil doesn't commit acts of evil on his own, he needs to be allowed in, assisted.  I firmly believe that The Misfit and his cronies would have left the family be had they felt they hadn't been recognized.  It doesn't do well to leave a trail of bodies when you're on the run and they certainly don't want to be wasting their bullets.  The grandmother calling him out ended up bringing him to action, now they had witnesses.  Evil is all around us, as is strife and pain (the grandmother was aware of this in her attempting to use the fear of him from the newspaper article, prepping "in case" they got in an accident, and her constant longing for the good men that in her eyes were long gone.  She seemed to see herself however as a God-Fearing woman who was doing everything possible to keep those evils at bay, when confronted however, she signed her families death warrant.  As O'Connor quoted, "The devil's greatest wile, Baudelaire has said, is to convince us that he does not exist."  If Grandma had just pretended with him that The Misfit was just an average Joe, that the devil didn't exist and used her "well-learned politesse", he would not have laid their souls to waste.  

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The grandmother-Violence as the vehicle of Grace

As the story, A Good Man is Hard to Find, by Flannery O'Conner opens the character of the grandmother has a very immature understanding of her Christian principles.  Her idea of who and what are "good" is childish.  Starting with idea that clothes identify who you are, she dresses a certain way to car trip because as she says, " In case of an accident, anyone seeing her dead on the highway would know at once that she was a lady."  Later, as the family are in the car she tells her grandchildren about Mr Teagarden.  She says she should have married him because he was a gentleman and he ended up being very wealthy. She believes that manners and money make a person good.  Then, as the family sits in the Tower restaurant the grandmother and Red Sammy have a discussion about how terrible the world is today.  Both look at the world in a shallow and superficial way. The grandmother says," People are certainly not nice like they used to be."  Her judgement about her fellow man directly contradicts her Christian principles.  As they leave the restaurant, and continue on their journey the grandmother talks her son into making the fateful detour to see the plantation. Once again it is for a very childish reason-she wants to get her way. And she uses that lie about hidden treasure to con them into going.  After the car accident the grandmother initially is trying to plead for her life by saying to the misfit, "Listen," the grandmother almost screamed, "I know you're a good man.  You don't look a bit like you have common blood. I know you must come from nice people."  She is still of the belief that good and bad are defined by bloodline and family.  It is not until moments before her death that she receives the grace to see the misfit as he is seen by God. She has an epiphany, "...the grandmother's head cleared for an instant."  At that moment, staring directly into the face of evil, she is able to see the humanness in everyone. All humanity are God's children.  The last words she utters are, "Why you're one of my babies.  You're one of my own children!"  Is the only way to know who and what we are truly made of through a dramatic or violent situation?  Does God's grace come to us in more subtle ways?

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Grandmother and Misfit

          “A Good Man is Hard to Find” was disturbing. I don’t think I understood it very well. I knew that as soon as the grandmother started talking about the Misfit he would make an appearance.  The grandmother in the story doesn’t seem to appreciate her son and his family. She lives with them but refuses to treat her son as an adult. She is very self-absorbed and selfish. She acts like one of the children. Neither father nor mother stands out as fully developed individuals and are one-dimensional characters. The plot seems to stand on the inter play between the grandmother and the Misfit.  The misfit seems to take his evil as common and pervasive. The grandmother seems to feel that since she is a lady she is above that commonness. Misfit is a paradox. He apologizes to the family because he doesn’t have a shirt on and then tells them he stole the clothes but what happened to the previous clothes owner? Why apologize for that social blunder but appear resigned and matter of fact about taking the lives of men, women and children. Showing no mercy for the children goes against every societal taboo.  I know at the end of the story the grandmother says that Misfit is one of her children. I do not understand this line. Is she identifying with evil? Or is she trying to illicit sympathy from Misfit?

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Finality of Eternal Rest: Morality

Is morality a derivative of death? It is human nature to amass a virtuous state after encountering the finality of eternal rest. The unknown is daunting to even the most cerebral being. To deviate from the permanence of death, a sense of rectitude procures within a being as a means of vindication for the imminence of the soul’s departing. Flannery O’Connor depicts the hypocrisy of the multitude in the short story “A Good Man is Hard to Find.” The Grandmother delineates the lack of discernment within the human race. She continuously slanders the name of humanity in saying, “it isn’t a soul in this green world of God’s that you can trust”(O’Connor 2779). The grandmother brings forth little positivity into this world. With her assertion she conforms the human race into a single, fallacious being. Simply stated, no man nor woman can be of good nature in this world under the reign of the “all sufficient”(2 Cor. 9:8) one. As the story progresses, the family encounters a man enthralled within a “transgression of divine law”(dictionary.com). The misfit, as he is known, displays to the grandmother the palpability of death. Out of desperation, the grandmother says to the Misfit “I just know you are a good man”(O’Connor 2783). She contorts her sentiment of the world to attain a sense of control over the situation. With a sense of morality, it is felt that one can overcome a seemingly insurmountable travesty. In the end, death is imminent for the grandmother. The Misfit closes in saying “she would have been a good woman...if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life”(O’Connor 2786). Does the reality of death conform human nature? Why do we, as humans, reflect upon our lives only in the hour of death and then choose to conform? 

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A Good Man is hard to find

"Been in the arm service, both land and sea, at home and abroad, been twict married, been an undertaker, been with the railroads, plowed Mother Earth, been in a tornado, seen a man burnt alive oncet".   These are the words spoken by The Misfit, and after reading the story I assumed, or wondered, that this was the writers way of saying evil is everywhere. The Misfit was Evil, and his ways were brought about him through life experiences.
Evil is in a lot of places, and a lot of people do a lot of bad things, but is this a harsh way of saying that people are bad at the core, or is she saying that people don't do enough good, or is she saying that the only reason people act good is because that's the way society is.  I wondered if the writer was trying to say if everyone had it their way, they wouldn't obey the law, and instead take every matter into their own hands and deal with it the best way they saw fit.

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O'Connor on "A Good Man Is Hard to Find"

Flannery O'Connor, "On Her Own Work," in Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose, edited by Sally Fitzgerald and Robert Fitzgerald, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1969, pp. 107-18.

[O'Connor delivered the following remarks at a reading she gave at Hollins College, Virginia on14 October 1963. In introducing her "A Good Man Is Hard to Find," O'Connor touches upon the function of violence and the grotesque in her fiction, especially in relation to the characters of the Grandmother and the Misfit in the story.]

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