Julian Hovind
Prof Amy Snider
English 100, Essay #2
March 7, 2008
The Hypocrite Grandmother: “A Good Man is Hard to Find” by Flannery O’Connor
In the story “A Good Man is Hard to Find” by Flannery O’Connor a grandmot\her’s perfect world is turned upside down by the events of a trip the family takes. Everything the grandmother does show what kind of person she is and leads to her death. The Grandmother contradicts everything she says about being a good person because she is stuck in her memories, she believes she knows best, and she is a stubborn catholic.
The family decides to go on a trip to Florida and for the entire trip the grandmother is reminiscing about her youth and how good it was. The memories the grandmother experiences during the trip are not completely correct and have a lot of wrong details. The first big mistake she makes is getting the family to look for a house she remembers except it is in a different state. This leads the family down a path they will never return from. After a bit of a scare her memory gets back in order and her memory starts working flawlessly. She remembers the Misfit’s face which seals the family’s fate. Her memories lead the family directly to the Misfit and got her and the family killed for it.
The grandmother and her family died because she was too proud to admit she was wrong. She felt it was necessary to always be right and so she tried to control the world around her. Every trip the family took the grandmother would write down how many miles they traveled and she always wore a flower so that if something happened, they would know she was a woman by the violet she was wearing. These were just a few of the examples from the text that prove she likes to control her reality. Control was even extended to June Starr, her granddaughter. A story about a rich gentleman from the south was told to June to bring her amusement and to convince her of the type of man she should marry. She completely disagreed with her Grandmother’s choice in men. Later on in the families journey they run into a man called the Misfit. The Misfit is the man who completely turned the grandmother’s perfect world upside down. During her conversation with the Misfit she tries to reinsert control by convincing herself and the Misfit that he is a good man that has no common blood in him. He disagrees and shots her.
Just before the grandmother is shot by the Misfit she has an Epiphany. She completely and selflessly forgives the Misfit for his crimes which shows that she is a strong catholic and that she follows Jesus’ teachings. Not only is the grandmother a strong catholic but she is a strong catholic to. She believes that salvation comes from prayer and that if you ask Jesus for help he will help you. The Misfit does not accept God so the grandmother tries to push her beliefs on him to “save” his soul and tells him many times that he should pray to Jesus for help. Soon after the grandmother has her epiphany and is shot by the misfit. The grandmother has such strong catholic beliefs because she is a southern woman and grew up in a family that believed Jesus was the saviour.
Although the grandmother was a strong catholic, she was not saved and she was far from perfect. She was stuck in her memories most of the time which lead the family straight to the Misfit and there death. The grandmother was old so she believed she knew best and tried to control the world around her. She wore a flower to make sure she would be identified as a woman if something happened to her. Finally, she is a stubborn catholic. She proves this by pushing prayer on the Misfit throughout their whole conversation and trying to make him believe that he will receive salvation through his prayers. When her world was turned upside down by the psychotic killer known as the Misfit she had no place to turn but to Jesus for help. At this point not even Jesus could save her.