1. Religion plays a significant role in the story. How do the grandmother and Misfit view and treat religion? How does this contribute to theme?
2. How does O'Connor foreshadow the fate of the family? What effect does this have on the reading and theme?
Flannery O'Connor's A Good Man Is Hard to Find is a thought provoking story of understanding truth. In the short story a serial killer, called the Misfit, is on the loose near Florida. Despite the danger of the Misfit a family traveled to Florida for a vacation. When the grandmother talked the rest of the family into a quick detour the family ended up in a car accident in the middle of the woods. The Misfit, along with two others, found them in the middle of the woods. The Misfit's goons led all the family members, except the grandma, deeper into the woods and killed them. While her family was murdered, the grandmother and the Misfit talked about religion. She talked to him about Jesus, and tried to convince him that there was some good in him.The Misfit and the grandmother had different views of religion, which contributed to a theme of understanding truth.
ReplyDeleteThe grandmother believed that religion was about being good. She is convinced he is "good man(8)." She is convinced that there is some good in him, and if he would only be good then he can find redemption. If he was good then he could be "honest(9)," and then he could live a "comfortable life(9)." Since she focuses so much on being good and honest I think she believes that people's goodness is what redeems them.
In contrast the Misfit believes that if one believes that Jesus died on the cross and rose from the grave for the salvation of all who believe, then one should follow Jesus. He said,
"If He did what He said, then it's nothing for you to do but throw away everything and follow Him, and if He didn't, then it's nothing for you to do but enjoy the few minutes you got left the best way you can-by killing somebody or burning down his house or doing some other meanness to him."
He believed that if the grandmother believed in Jesus than she would follow Him. If she believed in Jesus she would not be so focused on being good, but she would be focused on following Jesus. He also believed that if one did not believe in Jesus, then they might as well do whatever they want. I think the Misfit understood the Gospel a little bit better than the grandmother. She was so focused on being good, and that is not what the focus of Christianity. The Bible says, "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9not by works, so that no one can boast(Ephesians 2:8-9)." Our "works," the good we do, doesn't earn us a place in heaven. It is salvation through Christ that gives us eternal life. It is faith in Jesus. The entire focus of Christianity is on Jesus. It is a relationship with him; it is following him. It is "throwing away everything" to follow him. The Misfit understood this, but I don't think he was a believer: he did kill the grandmother. I think the grandmother and the Misfit contributed to a theme of truth. I think the author's religious views were very evident in the story.
The grandmother seems to fake being religious. She is devoted to creating idealized fictions throughout the entire story, and religion is one of them. She uses religion the most when begging the Misfit to spare her life towards the end of the story. She covers all the cliches, because that's all she really knows. "Alone with The Misfit, the grandmother found that she had lost her voice. There was not a cloud in the sky nor any sun. There was nothing around her but woods. She wanted to tell him that he must pray. She opened and closed her mouth several times before anything came out. Finally she found herself saying, 'Jesus. Jesus,' meaning, Jesus will help you, but the way she was saying it, it sounded as if she might be cursing." The Misfit seems to accept that religion exists, but acts to reject it. He believes some complex things about Jesus and God, almost more so than the grandmother. "'Yes'm,' The Misfit said as if he agreed. 'Jesus shown everything off balance. It was the same case with Him as with me except He hadn't committed any crime and they could prove I had committed one because they had the papers on me. Of course,' he said, 'they never shown me my papers. That's why I sign myself now. I said long ago, you get you a signature and sign everything you do and keep a copy of it. Then you'll know what you done and you can hold up the crime to the punishment and see do they match and in the end you'll have something to prove you ain't been treated right. I call myself The Misfit,' he said, 'because I can't make what all I done wrong fit what all I gone through in punishment.'"
ReplyDeleteO'Connor foreshadows the fate of the family from the very beginning of the story until the very end. It starts with the grandmother reading the newspaper and seeing him in an article. "'Now look here, Bailey," she said, 'see here, read this,' and she stood with one hand on her thin hip and the other rattling the newspaper at his bald head. '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.'" She doesn't really believe they'll encounter him though, it's just an excuse she tries using to avoid going to Florida. It's also mentioned at the restaurant they eat at en route to Florida. "'A good man is hard to find,' Red Sammy said. 'Every-thing is getting terrible. I remember the day you could go off and leave your screen door unlatched. Not no more.'" It gives us no suspense when they finally are killed by the Misfit, nor does it give us any remorse for them when they are killed. We listened to the grandmother tell idealized fictions, the children participate in bratty and racist behavior, the mother barely utter a word, and Bailey just being grumpy the entire time. These are not behaviors that would make us feel sympathy towards any of them.
2. Flannery O'Conner's "A Good Man is Hard to Find" foreshadows in a very blatant way. Throughout the beginning of the story "the Mistfit" keeps getting brought up in conversation or by the newspaper. The reader is hit over the head with this idea that the family will probably encounter this murderer. However, this adds to the story rather than detracts from it. When the reader is not fully focused on trying to predict the plot and they are not being surprised by the family finding this dangerous man, then they can put more effort into understanding the deeper meaning behind everything. The reader does not get hung up on every murder, but instead is hung up on the complex dialogue between the misfit and the grandmother.
ReplyDelete2. How does O'Connor foreshadow the fate of the family? What effect does this have on the reading and theme?
ReplyDeleteO'Connor foreshadows the fate of the family in "A Good Man Is Hard to Find" by constantly bringing up the Misfit on the car ride as well as at Red Sammy's Famous Barbecue. The grandma continuously said that where they were going on vacation was where the Misfit was which automatically makes one assume that they will be attacked. Later, at the barbecue restaurant, the woman there said she wouldn't be surprised if the Misfit attacked the place they were at. The author also had immense use of color description with colors like white and blue having positive connotation while colors like red and black had a negative connotation. She used colors to foreshadow what was to come. After the car accident, the author compared Bailey's face to the yellow in his shirt. Yellow typically represents joy, but in someone's face it would seem to represent more sickness and would foreshadow the worst to come. When the men showed up to "help" them after their car accident, they were described with colors like gray, red, and black which is the opposite of white which was used much during the beginning of the story especially with the Grandma's outfit. Even while the other men take parts of the family to the forest, the story is so focused on the grandmother and the Misfit's conversation. I think the foreshadowing helps focus the importance of their conversation which symbolizes something deeper. "There was a pistol shot from the woods, followed closely by another. Then silence. The old lady's head jerked around. She could hear the wind move through the tree tops like a long satisfied insuck of breath. 'Bailey Boy!' she called. 'I was a gospel singer for a while,' said The Misfit said." The Misfit immediately follows the grandmother being worried with conversation totally unrelated as if the shooting didn't even happen. The fact that it can flow this smoothly and not be pondered on too long shows that the foreshadowing's purpose was to create a dramatic ending with not only the deaths but an engrossing ending. It shows that the theme is not related to anything having to do with death or safety, but rather a focused lens on the grandmother's faith and seeing things clearly when she realizes it's her son. The son didn't seem to believe in Christianity quite like the mother which is why he killed her. He seemed angry with life which was why he was murdering all these people. His mother barely recognizing him showed that family wasn't a huge help with his life so it could be the reason his faith was weak. The foreshadowing contributed to the focus of this theme.
In A Good Man is Hard to Find by Flannery O’Connor, foreshadowing is a major literary device used to allow the reader to subconsciously skim over the deaths in the story, to instead, exemplify the importance of the conversation between The Misfit and the grandmother. With the very first paragraph, O’Connor inserts the idea of the family meeting The Misfit on their road trip when the grandmother reads an article that states he is, “aloose from the Federal Pen and headed toward Florida.” Since the family will be vacationing in Florida, the grandmother attempts to change her son, Bailey’s mind and go to Tennessee instead. Then, the story goes on to read that the grandmother dresses in her most proper clothes and cotton gloves so that, “In case of an accident, anyone seeing her dead on the highway would know at once that she was a lady.” This is a blatant foreshadowing of what will happen to the family on their road trip. These two quotes from the story are examples of intense foreshadowing used by O’Connor in the story, however, there are more, almost insignificant, uses of foreshadowing later in the story. Like when the family passes a, “large cotton field with five or six graves fenced in the middle of it.” This is comparable to the amount of people in the car at the time: six. Also, after their accident, The Misfit’s car is described as a, “big black battered hearse-like automobile,” which can signify how the family will soon die in the story. The effect of all this foreshadowing in the story is to subliminally let the reader know what is going to happen in the story. Then, at the end, this allows the reader to easily gloss over the deaths of the characters; the reader does not get as hung up or emotional about the deaths of the characters as they might have otherwise. Because of this, the reader can focus more on the significance of the conversation between The Misfit and the grandmother.
ReplyDeleteThe character development of the grandmother and the Misfit is essential to understanding the theme of religion in A Good Man is Hard to Find. The grandmother is depicted as a “proper lady,” wearing white gloves, and a hat even though they are going on a long car ride. The grandmother’s image symbolizes a religious woman who believes she’s good in the eyes of God, despite only seeming religious in the last few minutes before her death. Meanwhile in contrast, the Misfit is first introduced without a shirt, a black hat, and carrying a rifle, who symbolizes evil. The main difference between the grandmother’s and the Misfit’s view of God is how they fear penance from him. “If he did what he said then it’s nothing for you to do but throw away everything and follow him, and if he didn’t, then it’s nothing for you to do but enjoy the few minutes you got left the best way you can - by killing somebody or burning down his house or doing some other meanness to him.” The Misfit sees God as a catch 22, believing that if you believe in God then you are sacrificing personal freedom to worship him, however if you reject God you can live free and do what you please. In contrast, the grandmother insists that God could help the Misfit. The grandmother herself is not candidly religious. We can infer that she probably doesn’t go to church and in the story she cannot even say a real prayer, “Finally she found herself saying, ‘Jesus. Jesus,’ meaning, Jesus will help you, but the way she was saying it, it sounded as if she might be cursing.” So, the grandmother had been indifferent towards religion throughout her lifetime, but in her final moments she believes it to be the right thing to turn to. The contrasting views of religion of the grandmother and the misfit contribute to the theme because the theme illustrates the conflicts one might have in believing in God, whether it be rejecting him (the Misfit), or not being “good” enough (the grandmother).
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete