A Good Man Is Hard to Find
In Flannery O'Connor's "A Good Man Is Hard to Find", the characters experience moments of grace and redemption. Being a Catholic and a firm believer in redemption, even O'Connor's most evil characters could experience this. I think O'Connor chose to write this story partly because she wanted to persuade her readers to convert to Christianity, or to live like a Christian should. O'Connor shows and expresses her ideas of grace and redemption through her characters: the grandmother, the Misfit, Bailey, the two children, and the mother.
The grandmother is the central character of the story, who lives in the past. She is pushy, manipulative, deceitful, self-serving, and a liar. The grandmother also was concerned with class and being a lady. "Her collars and cuffs were white organdy trimmed with lace and at her neckline she had pinned a purple spray of cloth violets containing a sachet."
Statue of John Wesley in Reynolds Square
English: Signature of John Wesley, founder of Meth...
English: Remember John Wesley, Wroot. Photo by E A..."In case of an accident, anyone seeing her dead on the highway would know at once that she was a lady (303)." Although the grandmother believes in God, it seems that her belief is not really strong until her confrontation with 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" (309)! The grandmother began to chant to the Misfit "Pray, pray." "If you would pray, Jesus would help you" (311). Elisabeth Piedmont-Marton, a critic from "Short Stories for Students," agrees. "When the grandmother finally runs out of words and is left to mutter "Jesus" over and over, O'Connor is suggesting that she is moving toward a deeper awareness of her faith (Sparrow p 3). A moment of grace the grandmother portrays is when...