Analysis of A Good Man is Hard to Find
Flannery O'Connor's "A Good Man is Hard to Find" is character driven.First, she introduces the characters in a way that allows the reader to seeand understand the character. Yet her use of characterization is more thanintroducing the character to the reader. She effectively uses hercharacters to symbolize truth, the human problem which is universal.Through characterization she gives her work vitality, allowing the work totake on a life of its own. In "A Good Man is Hard to Find," O'Connor givesthe role of symbolizing truth and the role of adding vitality to the piecethrough the use of the main character of the story, the grandmother. Flannery O'Connor's characters in "A Good Man is Hard to Find" areamusing and typical of the rural South. However the characters are shallowand seem void of any sort of spirituality. She describes the characters inher stories as "poor, afflicted in both mind and body, [with] little-or atbest a distorted sense of spiritual purpose" (Polter). Besides usingcharacterization as metaphors to other things, she successfully uses thetechnique to make readers feel as if they are in the same room with theperson. Her descriptions are not flowery and are woven into the st
In the end, The Misfit does notwant to change. Through effective use of characterization, O'Connor is able totransmit truth. The passage shows vitality intwo respects. She has no real purpose in life and there are no signs of anyspirituality. She uses the word "aloose" and thesouthern expression, "I couldn't answer my conscience to it" (O'Connor117). In the car, readers see grandmother sleeping, then jolted into astate of awareness, by her own snoring. In essence, the grandmother is shallow. She does so in case she is in an accident and anyone seeing herwould know immediately that she is a lady. Though the grandmother knew, in her mind, of thepower of grace and redemption, she did not understand it. Perhaps O'Connor is trying to point out thatthe power to save (awaken) oneself is already present inside each human. Atrue Christian, or even someone who cares for her family, would beconcerned with the family as well, but the Grandmother is not. O'Connor herself placed the grandmother inbetween-neither good nor evil (O'Connor, "On Her Own Work" 107-118) She isprim and proper, as people say, quite pleasant to strangers and anxious totalk to them, but she is no Southern Belle, nor is she a saint, though shemay imagine that she is. On first reading, the passage issimply humorous, as the reader imagines the grandmother startling herselfwith her own snoring.
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Acceptance Essays
