IT is not difficult to label the agent of evil in Flannery
             O'Connor's signature story, "A Good Man is Hard to Find." An
             escaped convict, self-named the Misfit, dispassionately orders
             the murder of a Georgia family - everyone from grandmother to
             baby - after coming upon them when their car overturns along a
             dusty country road. The Misfit orders the murders because the
             Grandmother has, foolishly, recognized and named him, and also
             to steal the family's car. But as in all of O'Connor's stories, the
             violent surface action only begins to suggest the depths and
             complexities of meaning embedded in the story. This is
             especially true when considering the mystery of evil and its
             On one level the story's title refers to the words of a popular song
             - "A good man is hard to find You always get the other kind."
             But on another level it also suggests Christ's rebuke to Peter
             when Peter tried to call him good, and Jesus responded that no
             one should be called good (Mark 10:18) - a mistake the
             Grandmother makes repeatedly in her encounter with the Misfit.
             At the same time, it is also true to say that, excepting Satan, no
             one should be called totally evil, certainly not in any absolute
             sense. Good and evil, as potentialities and as actualities, are
             inextricably inter-twined in human beings, and this is true for
             both the Grandmother and the Misfit. It is more accurate to speak
             of gradations of human good and evil, and of the drama of choice
             in the face of competing moral options. O'Connor's story
             explores a range of these options and their consequences, as well
             as suggesting the mysterious invisible forces beyond personality
             and circumstance that help to shape human destiny.
             A central principle of O'Connor's Catholic theology, expressed
             by St. Thomas Aquinas and other theologians, is that evil has no
             being, and that evil always appears as a good to the one who
             commits ...