This essay attempts to explain the message behind Flannery O'Connor's "A Good Man is Hard to Find".

Essay by bria001College, UndergraduateA+, March 2003

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Du-Ewa Sanabria

Honors English Composition 1101

Prof. R.M. Stambaugh

February 3, 2003

A Good Man's Message

At first glance, this story is grotesque, horrifying and very disturbing. The shock value of the story is not lost even though the family's fate is quite evident quite early on.The terror is in knowing and hoping against hope that this is not so. Then you are forced to analyze why such a story is necessary and what message could the writer have possibly meant to deliver through this terrible depiction of a family's last moments. I put aside this family's undertaking and focused my attention on everything else that is occurring in the story. Especially the interaction between the grandmother and the Misfit, where I realize

that this story is more about that moment in life where through strife you find Glory. I believe the Misfit's words at the end, "She would have been a good woman, if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life," (1153), sums up the message of this story.

We all know the grandmother. We have all, in our own lives, either been around her or have been her at moments. Most of us have certain morals or values as well as some sort of affinity with the spiritual and/or the divine. Yet, we all judge others and we all at some point manipulate the truth to serve our purposes in our own reality. We see the

grandmother do this and more throughout the story, while clinging to her Christian ideals. She is hypocritical, saying and doing many things that directly contradict who she claims to be. When she is faced with a certain, violent death her faith waivers and instead of turning to God, she turns away. Like most of us,