Congratulations, You Found Me

In Flannery O’Connor’s short story “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” the grandmother and the Misfit meet under what seems to be a random and terrifying circumstance. However, it is through their conversation that they help one another through a spiritual struggle and each makes their own individual peace with God.

At the start of the story, the grandmother shows herself to be both vain and childish. When confronted with the family vacation to Florida, she immediately tries to get her way through whatever means necessary- such as her threat of encountering the Misfit and her desire to broaden her grandchildrens' horizons by taking them to east Tennessee. However, when given the option to stay behind, she declines for the sole reason, as June Star explains, that she would be “[a]fraid she’d miss something.” As the trip continues, she feeds off of her past as a means to keep herself at the center of attention- such as her story of being “courted” by a young gentleman, her conversation with Red Sam about “better times,” and her fabricated tale of a “secret panel.” Her childish ways culminate in her strong physical embarrassment about her faltering memory, which cause the sudden and fateful accident. The grandmother’s childish attitude is set in balance by another flaw, her arrogance and vanity over her status as a lady. This vanity is made apparent by her ridiculous apparel for the car ride to make sure that anyone “would know at once that she was a lady” along with her reminiscing over the days of plantations now “Gone With the Wind.” She also makes the mistake of confusing the quality of one’s soul with social class- when meeting the Misfit, she pleads that he must be a good man since he has no “common blood.”

The Misfit, on the other hand, is a man who has lost all faith; because of which he is driven to do evil. However, the Misfit does show that he was at least once a “good man” through his civility to his doomed captives: he does not speak of killing the family in order to stop them from being nervous, and he apologizes for his lack of a shirt in the presence of ladies. He is a man who has seen and experienced horrible things- a woman being flogged, a lynching, war, and even being buried alive- and through these experiences lost his way and blames God for throwing “everything off balance.” Not being to remember the crime of killing his own father, he has become twisted and angry inside and has committed his other crimes just so that he can record and remember them in its stead. It is the pain of not even knowing the entirety of his life that causes him to question God’s existence. He even states that if he were there to see Jesus’s miracles for himself, he may be different.

Through their fated meeting, the two characters are able to take steps toward cleansing one another of their sins. Through her family’s death, the grandmother is able to see the results of her actions- not only her lie about the secret panel, but also her being so excited upon recognizing the Misfit as to blurt out his name- and in the desperation of trying to save her own life, improves herself. While seeing those she loved being led into the forest to die, the grandmother begins to pray, and instead of cursing her antagonist, she attempts to save his soul by asking him to turn back to God. Her killer himself states that she “would of been a good woman” if she had been faced with death earlier. The Misfit, moved by the grandmothers efforts, begins to break down and realize the error of his ways just before lashing out in terror and killing the grandmother. It is after ending her life that he is transformed, instead of loving to cause pain and death to others, he shows remorse and remarks to killing as “no real pleasure.” Although she was unable to save her own life, through improving herself the grandmother was able to save not only her soul, but that of another. (698)