My impressions of "A Good Man Is Hard to Find" by Flannery O'Connor

Blog about “A Good Man Is Hard to Find.” Does the plot surprise you? Why or why not? When you started reading the story, what did you think would happen? If you have seen any films by the Coen brothers (especially No Country for Old Men), can you see how they were influenced by Flannery O’Connor?


I had some expectations before reading the story by Flannery O’Connor. There was a short description of the writer before the story, and it described O’Connor as a “Southern Gothic” writer because of her “fascination with grotesque incidents and characters.” I expected an untold amount of blood and gore, and as soon as I read about a serial murderer called The Misfit in the first paragraph, I immediately knew that this murderer would somehow be tied in to a seemingly ordinary family’s trip to Florida. The grandmother is the obvious protagonist of the story as she does the most talking in the text. The author has made sure to describe the grandmother with meticulous detail, from her mannerisms and her habits to the clothes she was wearing on the trip. I already felt a sense of foreboding the moment I read the story, and I felt for the grandmother, who I was sure would be fated for an ill end.

I noticed that the author did not provide names for the majority of the characters. John Wesley and June Star’s mother, for instance, was only referred to as the “children’s mother.” Red Sam’s wife was also only referred to “Red Sam’s wife”. Even the protagonist of the story was only referred to as “Grandmother.” This could be because O’Connor did not want readers to become attached to any of the characters in this short story. It could also suggest the utter ordinariness of the characters – at a glance, they could be any ordinary squabbling family, with an ordinary bossy grandmother. Indeed, the majority of the characters eventually died in the hands of The Misfit.

The story is rather dark, with sinister overtones. It also progressed slowly, with not much happening until the very end, when the family encountered The Misfit. The title is rather misleading as well – there was not much in the story to suggest that “a good man is hard to find”. I was hoping the grandmother would be alive in the end, as she was the protagonist of this story. I found it strange that she died in the end; I am not used to a protagonist’s death in a story. The evil villain usually dies at the end, not the heroine! The loss of the grandmother was to me a bigger loss than the other members of the family, who were more or less disrespectful and unappreciative towards the grandmother.

The climax of the story progressed much more quickly – this was when the family was met with an accident and met The Misfit and his men. The title starts to make more sense when the grandmother, afraid for her life, said to The Misfit, “I know you’re a good man. You don’t look a bit like you have common blood. I know you must come from nice people! (364)” At this point onwards, the reader starts to wonder whether The Misfit could actually be a good man and spare the old lady’s life. However, The Misfit shot the grandmother three times in the chest and the title of the story comes full circle: that a good man is hard to find.

There is a twist in the story where the grandmother said to The Misfit, “Why you’re one of my babies. You’re one of my own children!” Although it is likely that The Misfit already knew that the grandmother was his real mother before killing her, I find it more likely that the grandmother, in the moments before her death, became crazed and mistook The Misfit for one of her own. If The Misfit was indeed the grandmother’s son, this would doubly reinforce the title of the story.

I was intrigued that a devout Roman Catholic writer like Flannery O’Connor would write such a dark story. Nothing in the story suggested her devout Catholic faith, instead, the story was largely skeptical of prayer and how religion could change a person’s life. There is nothing hopeful in the tone of the story – the author has written it in a cynical view of life, with the flaws of human character obviously exposed. Although I did not enjoy the story (I prefer stories with a more hopeful outlook on life), it was well written and very vivid – one could immediately be immersed in the setting the author has created, making the reader that much more impacted by the somber feeling throughout the whole story.