"A good Man Is Hard to Find" by Flannery O'Connor

Essay by jdlarue22University, Bachelor'sA+, February 2005

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In Grandmother We Trust

"She would have been a good woman," The misfit said, "if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life." (O'Connor 140)

The story, "A good Man Is Hard to Find" by Flannery O'Connor involves characters that posses many traits of Christianity and sin. The grandmother only posses characteristics of sin. The grandmother is selfishly manipulative, racist, and deceitful. These traits possessed by the grandmother inevitably bring her and her whole family to their fate.

The grandmother is selfishly manipulative in many different circumstances. The first circumstance is when the grandmother doesn't want to go to Florida. The grandmother tries to manipulate Bailey to visit east Tennessee by stating,

"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. I couldn't answer to my conscience if I did." (O'Connor1-5)

The second circumstance is when she uses her two grandchildren to manipulate Bailey into visiting an old house. Knowing the grandchildren couldn't resist she states,

LaRue 2

"There was a secret panel in this house... And the story went that all the families silver was hidden in it when Sherman came through but it was never found..." (O'Connor45-50)

The final circumstance is when she selfishly tries to manipulate The Misfit to spare her life. The grandmother states,

"I know you're a good man. You don't look a bit like you have common blood. I know you must have come from nice people!" (O'Connor 91-93)

The grandmother's selfish manipulating acts throughout the story was nothing but a deadly sin.

The grandmother displays...