The essay is called "The Clues O'Connor Provides". It is about the use of foreshadowing in the short story of "A Good Man Is Hard To Find" by Flannery O'Connor

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The Clues O'Connor Provides

Flannery O'Connor uses the literary device of foreshadowing throughout the short story, "A Good Man is Hard to Find." Connor uses this device with a very subtle approach, which allows her to signal the outcome of the story, yet at the same time, does not give the ending of the story away completely. "A Good Man is Hard to Find" is inundated with many instances of foreshadowing which point toward the conclusion. The use of foreshadowing hints to the reader that the family will meet up with the Misfit and their fate on their journey to Florida.

From the very start of the story, Flannery O'Connor, begins to use foreshadowing. In the first line she writes, "The grandmother didn't want to go to Florida. She wanted to visit some of her connections in east Tennessee and she was seizing at every chance to change Bailey's mind."

This statement casts a doubt to the reader about the trip that is soon to come. Even though it says that the grandmother wants to visit connections in Tennessee, it makes the reader wonder why the grandmother really doesn't want to go to Florida. Is there more to the story? What is to come on this trip to Florida? Is there something worrying her about going to Florida?

The most obvious use of foreshadowing also occurs in the very first paragraph. The grandmother says,

"Here this fellow that calls himself The Misfit is aloose from the Federal Pen and headed toward Florida and you read here what it says he did to these people. Just you read it. I wouldn't take my children in any direction with a criminal like that aloose in it."

The position that this quote is placed in the story is...