A Good Man is Hard to Find


The story "a good man is hard to find" is about a family that live in the south and is taking a vacation to Florida. You could say that the real journey was not  taken from one place to another but that it took place in the family's lives. One of the main question that comes up is how can a good man be defined and why is there only a few of them left in the world. Most, if not all of the characters think that they good. This could be based on the moral ethics that they live by and which helps to define and shape them into the person that they are. Some of these moral ethics are obviously flawed as we can see in the story. So another question that come up is, are these characters blinded by their own piousness. It appears as if the authors main purpose was to reveal some moral message to the reader. O'Connor used setting, plot, characterization to show human behavior can be seen in a negative light. These negative behaviors can affect our lives and the lives of others. The traits that the author brought up in the story shows how hatred, ignorance and misunderstanding towards other people can cause our lives to end.

Comments

  1. Marvin TaylorApril 23, 2018 at 9:24 AM

    I definitely agree with your post Chris , I saw the overall theme being based on moral but it was so hard to see what would be deemed morally correct. It would feelmore like picking a the lesser of
    the evils. I will say though it seems like this story is about two main characters, The grand mother and the misfit . The misfit seems to take religion more serious than the grandmother who is just christian in name. At least she can't say that she wasn't murdered with manners lol.

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  2. Branda BrumaireMay 1, 2018 at 4:57 PM

    Hey Chris,

    Definitely great exploration on your part I think O' Connor does a great job at making it known who the main characters are from the very beginning. In the opening of "A Good Man is Hard to Find" the Misfit is automatically into the story line with a newspaper article without any relation to the actual characters . It's never just an introduction of a character but more of a developing of one. I'm, not so sure if the title of the short story did it for me or of it was just the various dialogues throughout the story that made it a story. But the development of the story itself leading up to the killings and the Misfit's encounter with the grandmother had me thinking more of O' Connors hand at expressing underlying values and truths through the characters instead of the characters themselves telling a story. Some of that included the time set in 1955 which brings on a whole host of context, the historical implications and the suttle cues of racism that is picked up throughout the storie's details.

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