DeNoon
1
Emily DeNoon
ENGL 2604
Dr. Welch
10 November 2011
O’Connor’s “A Good Man Is Hard to Find”: Spiritual Salvation through Physical
Predicament
Flannery O’Connor’s story “A Good Man Is Hard to Find,” a family experiences
an accident on a detour from their vacation and faces the consequences of their
wandering. The consequences they face result not from physical straying alone, but from
disregard for moral and spiritual values. O’Connor uses dramatic, situational, and verbal
irony to highlight the misdirection in the main characters and to illustrate the theme that
outwards appearance do not indicate inward values.
The first instance of irony occurs in the naming of the characters. June Star
appears far from a star child and is characterized as disrespectful, selfish, and bratty. She
belittles Red Sam’s wife saying, “I wouldn’t live in a place like this for a million bucks!”
Her disrespect for a total stranger shows a lack of morals and highlights the lackadaisical
nature of Bailey and his wife’s parenting. John Wesley shares a name with the famous
Christian theologian and evangelist. This presents irony as the family’s values stray from
Christian morals and from salvation. The name also presents irony as it foreshadows the
grandmother’s eventual need for salvation at the end of the story.
Although the characters of the mother and grandmother remain nameless,
O’Connor implies irony through the contrast between the two women. While Bailey’s
wife says little throughout the story and dresses modestly in the slacks and a green head-
DeNoon
2
kerchief, Bailey’s mother speaks often, even unnecessarily, and adorns herself ornately
with “a navy blue straw sailor hat with a bunch of white violets on the brim and a navy
blue dress with a small white dot in the print” (379). Each time the children’s mother
appears in the novel she is with the baby, showing her primary role as caretaker. The
grandmother makes mainly judgmental comments about others and places herself on a
righteous pedestal. Through this characterization, O’Conner creates irony in the extreme
opposite roles of the two women. Situational irony occurs as neither image is completely
pleasant even though they embody different roles and strive for different goals. The
mother shows little affection to her husband and their relationship appears as
dysfunctional; the family does not respect the grandmother because of her selfrighteousness. Furthermore, through the nameless women, O’Connor makes the reader
perceive the characters based on their actions and words; preconceived biases are not
created from their names. It also shows the characters in a stereotypical light, making
them relatable personas that show the universal nature of immorality and judgment.
The final irony surrounding name occurs with the Misfit. His name itself is ironic,
although appropriate for his character. In a prison where each convict answers to a
number and wears the same outfit to make them conform, Misfit simply does not fit in.
He says that his father referred to him as “a different breed of dog” (389). Additionally,
Misfit’s role as a convict would normally be associated with sin and immorality.
However, at the end of the story, Misfit reveals the moral corruption of the self-righteous
grandmother. He is the character that brings salvation and peace to the grandmother by
making her cry out to Jesus and pray, realizing He is the only One who can save her at
DeNoon
3
this point. Misfit appears as the “good man” who is “hard to find” which does not “fit”
logically.
Dramatic irony occurs in the story from the grandmother’s perspective, as the
family cannot see the path of destruction and moral corruption they are headed down,
especially from the grandmother’s perspective. The grandmother seats herself on a
pedestal, shown in her judgmental and condescending tone towards others. In speaking of
a poor, African-American child on the side of the road she says, “Oh look at the cute little
pickaninny! …Little niggers in the country don’t have things like we do. If I could paint,
I’d paint that picture” (380). Not only does she speak down about the child, but
referencing that she would paint a picture of him shows her complete disregard for those
less-fortunate. She views them solely as something to hang on the wall, revealing her lack
of compassion. Additionally, her use of derogatory terms is mocking the child as she also
calls him “cute”.
The grandmother’s betrayal of Christian values, such as compassion, is
represented physically by the random dirt road where the family’s accident occurs. The
family ends up on the detour because the grandmother uses manipulation to get Bailey to
do what she wants and ends up being wrong. She uses the children to initially persuade
him by saying “It would be very educational for them” and “It’s not far from here, I
know,” she explicitly lies and uses deceit like a child to get her way (384). In reality, the
house would have little educational value and she remembers the wrong location. Once
on the road, at the exact time the grandmother realizes the house is in fact in Tennessee
and not in Georgia, her initial act of deceit creates the main problem for the family.
Although Bailey preferred to travel without the cat, Pitty-Sing, the grandmother hid it in
DeNoon
4
her bag. The cat’s outburst and latching onto Bailey’s neck causes the accident and
ultimately death for the entire family. Irony presents itself as such a small act results in
such large, negative consequences and as the “righteous” grandmother manipulates her
way into destruction. As Red Sam says, “you don’t know who to trust” (382).
Furthermore, her realization that the house is not in the direction they are traveling
foreshadows her later realization that she does not have salvation. However, through
pride, she keeps this realization to herself and it becomes too late for the rest of the
family, who remain sidetracked both physically and spiritually.
After the accident, verbal irony occurs once again through foreshadowing as June
Star exclaims disappointedly, “But nobody’s been killed” (386). As the story progresses,
the entire family ends up dead. Foreshadowing also occurs in the “purple spray of cloth
violets containing a sachet” that the grandmother pins to herself before the trip. Her
reasoning for the violets is that “In case of an accident, anyone seeing her dead on the
highway would know at once that she was a lady” (379). Of course, she did not intend to
die on the trip, but O’Connor uses the violets to foreshadow the accident and death that
occur.
When Misfit arrives on the scene, death is not probable until the grandmother
recognizes him for who he is. The audience is completely shocked when Bailey and John
Wesley are shot in the woods, followed by the mother and other children. The situation is
ironic because the younger characters die before the eldest character. However, the sound
of shots seems to faze the grandmother as she scrambles to save her own life through lies.
Her view of Misfit “changes” as she initially describes him as a “criminal” that she
“wouldn’t take [her] children in any direction” towards him. Ironically, it is her selfish
DeNoon
5
desire to see the house that leads the family to the Misfit. However, when he holds her
life in his hands, she begins to tell him that he is “a good man” and is “not the least bit
common” (389). Contrastingly, death results when Misfit points out who the
grandmother truly is. He makes her see herself in self-righteous sin and takes her off of
her pedestal, as she must beg for her life. It is at a point of desperation that she eventually
cries out to Jesus for help and encourages Misfit to pray as well. As Misfit questions why
Jesus was raised from the dead, he reveals how people, like the grandmother, can stray
from their beliefs. The old lady was unable to “throw away everything and follow Him”
because she was wrapped up in sin (392). Misfit, on the other hand, cannot comprehend
Jesus being raised from the dead and lives his life “by killing somebody or burning down
his house or doing some other meanness to him” (392). Unlike the grandmother, Misfit is
true to himself and recognizes his sin. When faced with death before her, the
grandmother does follow Him and give up herself; she is raised from the spiritual death
of her sin. This is shown by Misfit’s comment that “She would of been a good
woman…if had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life” (393). By
saying this, Misfit conveys that she would have figured her life out and been willing to
follow Jesus if she had been faced with death, or lived everyday like it was her last.
The final irony in the story lies in Misfit wearing Bailey’s shirt. At this point, the
grandmother reaches out and touches Misfit, recognizing him as a loved one. This is his
final straw. He cannot handle the physical touch or compassion; he has not experienced
compassion in his lifetime of having “been in the arm service…twice married…an
undertaker…in a tornado, seen a man burnt alive…and seen a woman flogged. As a result
of her compassion, shoots her three times.
DeNoon
Ultimately, he makes her see herself in sin, leading to repentance. The random
road she takes the family down represents physical destruction and misguidance, but
eventually salvation. O’Connor illustrates that salvation comes at a price and that just
because the grandmother had it all put together on the outside does not mean that her
moral character followed suit. She succeeded when it mattered most: in the situation of
life or death. Unfortunately, her family was lead astray by her spiritual blindness.
Although the scenes of their deaths are unknown, they are last seen as misguided in sin.
6