“A Good Man is Hard to Find”
Flannery O’Connor
"A Good Man is Hard to Find" by Flannery O'Connor
1. Why does the grandmother dress up for the trip?
2. Why does the grandmother say she doesn't want to go to
Florida?
3. How does Red Sam feel about people and everything else
these days?
4. Who approaches the family after the accident?
5. What are the three men holding?
6. What does the grandmother continue to tell The Misfit to do?
7. What eventually shocks the grandmother out of her selfishness
and judgmental views?
8. What happens to the family at the end of the story?
Plot Overview
 The family decides to take a trip to Florida. The grandmother wishes to
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go to Tennessee.
The family stops to eat lunch at The Tower. As Red Sammy and the
grandmother talk about the state of the world, Red Sammy states, “A
good man is hard to find.”
The grandmother convinces her family to turn down a dirt road to visit
an old plantation.
The car wrecks after the cat jumps out of her basket.
Three men approach the wrecked car. The grandmother recognizes one
of the men as The Misfit.
As the grandmother pleads with The Misfit to pray with her, the other
two men take the family off to the woods and shoot them.
The grandmother calls The Misfit one of her own children and he shoots
her three times in the chest.
Characters
 The grandmother - a judgmental old woman
 The Misfit – an escaped serial killer
 Bailey – the grandmother’s son
 John Wesley – a loud and obnoxious 8 year old boy (John
Wesley is also an important religious figure and is credited
with founding the Methodist church)
 June Star – a rude and obnoxious little girl
 The Mother
 Red Sammy Butts – the owner of “The Tower”
Major Character Analysis – The
Grandmother
 Considers herself morally superior to others
 Never criticizes herself – she only judges others
 When faced with death, finally realizes she is flawed
 When she calls The Misfit one of her own children, she is finally
able to experience compassion and understanding
Major Character Analysis – The Misfit
 Is self aware (accepts himself for who he is)
 Demonstrates a deep conviction to his life that the other
characters do not (he is committed to his “meanness”)
 Is considered a strong character because he is consistent in his
beliefs
 O’Connor calls The Misfit “a prophet gone wrong”
Important Themes and Symbols
 What is a “good man”?
What does the grandmother think is a good man?
What does The Misfit think is a good man?
 Christian grace
The grandmother receives grace before she dies.
The Misfit changes his belief from “no pleasure but meanness” to
“there’s no real pleasure in life”. Killing has ceased to bring him
happiness.
 The grandmother’s hat
Beginning – keeping up appearances
End – the hat falls apart, much like the grandmother’s moral beliefs
 Moral codes
“She would have been a good woman,” The
Misfit said, “if it had been somebody there to
shoot her every minute of her life.”
 Shows that The Misfit understands that the grandmother is flawed
 When facing death, the grandmother has the ability to be a good
woman.
 If the grandmother could live her life at gunpoint, then she
would be a compassionate woman.
Flannery
O’Connor
Essay
 Thesis Statement:
 In Flannery O’Connor’s short story “A Good Man Is
Hard to Find,” O’Connor shows what a good man is
through the characterization of Bailey, grandmother,
and The Misfit.
Essay
 Brainstorm:
 Bailey
 Grandmother’s son
 Doesn’t listen to mother about The Misfit
 Stubborn (doesn’t want to take her to Tennessee)
 Makes hasty decisions because of whining and griping
 Grandmother
 She makes odd decisions (brings the cat, dresses nice for a car accident)
 She believes she can out talk The Misfit and convince him not to kill her.
 Also, she doesn’t plead for anyone else’s life (selfish).
 She could’ve been good if she had a gun to her at all times (Misfit quote).
Essay
 The Misfit
 He has strong convictions (beliefs) about the nature of good and
evil (his parents were good, but recognized that he would not
be).
 His ideas about religion and the dubious nature of Jesus being
the savior create a moral conundrum.
 He kills the family and shows that he acts as he believes. He’s
not a hypocrite.
 He’s a leader and people fear him, yet the grandmother insists
falsely that he is a good man.
Essay: Introduction
 Flannery O’Connor themes.
 Regarding her emphasis of the grotesque, O'Connor said:
"anything that comes out of the South is going to be called
grotesque by the northern reader, unless it is grotesque, in
which case it is going to be called realistic."[8]
 O'Connor, Flannery. Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose.
Eds. Robert and Sally Fitzgerald. New York: Farrar, 1969: p.
40.
 Her texts usually take place in the South and revolve around
morally flawed characters, while the issue of race often
appears in the background.
Introduction
 One of her trademarks is foreshadowing, giving a reader an
idea of what will happen far before it happens. Most of her
works feature disturbing elements, though she did not like to
be characterized as cynical. "I am tired of reading reviews
that call A Good Man brutal and sarcastic," she writes. "The
stories are hard but they are hard because there is nothing
harder or less sentimental than Christian realism... when I
see these stories described as horror stories I am always
amused because the reviewer always has hold of the wrong
horror."
 O'Connor, Flannery. The Habit of Being. Ed. Sally Fitzgerald.
New York: Farrar, 1979: p. 90.
Summary
 Restate thesis.
 Mention how each character’s actions either changed or
stayed static by the end.
 Mention how well or poorly O’Connor’s characterization
shows what a good man is.
Starter Sentence
 When Flannery O’Connor had an opinion, she didn’t spend
hours trying to convince people that her conclusions were
right. Instead, she wrote about it.
Body Paragraph Format
 Topic Sentence
 Three sentences that give examples or back up
 A transition sentence that leads to the next topic
 Example:
Bailey, the grandmother’s son, showed O’Connor’s
idea of a good man. Sometimes the best example is the
opposite and Bailey was certainly the antithesis of
O’Connor’s good man concept. He doesn’t listen to his
mother about The Misfit and his stubborn nature keeps him
from taking her to Tennessee. Also, he makes hasty decisions
based on whining and griping like trying to find the mansion
with the secret door. Even though he served as O’Connor’s
opposite ideal, she used other characters to prove her point.