Name: ____________________________
Short Story Unit
American Literature
Mr. Reiff
Questions for Critical Thinking and Writing for A Good Man Is Hard to Find
Experience
1. Did you enjoy the opening section of the story? Why or why not? At what point
specifically did your perception of the kind of story you were reading change --- if it
did?
2. How did you respond to the Misfit’s behavior? To his speech?
Interpretation
3. How does O’Connor characterize the grandmother? What do we learn about her from
her conversation with the Misfit? What do we learn about him? What is his favorite
saying, and what sense do you make of it?
4. How do you explain the story’s title?
Evaluation
5. What religious qualities or elements emerge in this story? How, as the Misfit says,
has Jesus “thrown everything off balance”?
6. In what sense could the grandmother have been a good woman if, as the Misfit says,
there was “somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life”?