Flannery O'Connor's "A Good Man is Hard to Find"

There is an ancient adage that tells of a picture being able to speak a thousand words. Likewise, there are occasions when powerful messages, themes and symbols can be projected with a limited amount of words. Indeed, most of the best known written works throughout literary history are not necessarily the longest in length, but are the highest impact because of their skillful construction.

Within modern literature, there are countless examples of stories that while appearing to be brief and deceivingly simple to understand, are in fact highly complex and full of detailed information when examined from below the surface of the words in the story and actually in terms of the meanings to be found inside of them. An excellent example of this can be found in Flannery O'Connor's "A Good Man is Hard to Find". For some, the story is seen as satire-something that is amusing but not realistic. For others, it is dark humor at its best. In this paper, as was suggested at the outset, "A Good Man is Hard to Find" will be examined much deeper beyond the surface, by analyzing key components of the work itself. Ultimately, the researcher will have shown, the complexity of O'Connor's story when it is placed in proper context.

Overall, the thesis that will be proven in this paper is that in writing "A Good Man is Hard to Find", Flannery O'Connor was in fact making a strong statement about the presence of good end evil in the world, the ugliness of hatred, and the lethal nature of selfishness and lack of concern for others. More than an entertaining work of literature, the story is in fact a morality tale and dissection of the human soul.
Tone

In this story, the overall tone plays a pivotal role in setting the stage for the unfolding of the plot, which in retrospect, takes a course that the average reader probably would never suspect when starting to read the story. Without summarizing the entire plot of the story, the tone from the beginning is ominous- a family sets off on a trip from Georgia to Florida, which in itself can be unforgiving terrain, especially in the times that O'Connor wrote the story.

Within the scope of this family trip, the reader encounters a grandmother who is far from the innocent old woman that can be seen in many other works; rather, she is cranky, bossy, and shows a great deal of racism and prejudice through her dialogue, which manages to offend entire races of individuals in a few brief sentences. Moreover, the grandmother does not give the impression that she wants to be on the trip itself. In fact, the grandmother does not seem to come to any sort of a rational realization of the value of life and the importance of the other people within her life until the end of the story when her life is about to end.

Joining the grandmother on the trip are her impatient and sarcastic son, his wife and their children. As a comment concerning the wife/mother and children, the wife/mother seems to be detached from the action that is taking place around her, whether due to her disgust with having to take the trip or due to O'Connor's lack of emphasis on this particular character. Her children are what one would classically call bratty, which is to say that they continue to cry, complain and carry on throughout the trip. All of these characters are eventually confronted with a character simply known as "The Misfit", a crazed murderer who has escaped from custody.

Ultimately, the truly ominous tone of "A Good Man is Hard to Find" reaches what can best be called maximum volume when the family is confronted by The Misfit, as the result of having an accident on a secluded back road, which the grandmother insisted was an excellent short cut, but ultimately becomes a one way ticket to eternity, as The Misfit murders the family. However, for those who analyze O'Connor's work beyond the surface, the climax of the story is only the beginning. The real meaning and value of the story is best obtained when the two most prominent and fascinating elements of the story- theme and symbolism- are separated from the plot of the story and examined individually. By doing this, the reader is better equipped to understand the hidden, and intended meaning of the author when she originally created this work over half a century ago. First, the element of theme will be isolated and explored for better understanding.

Theme

The theme of "A Good Man is Hard to Find" is readily apparent in the title of the story itself- essentially, it is very difficult to find individuals who are essentially good, in the traditional sense of right and wrong. Taking this line of thought a step further, the ultimate theme of the work, it can fairly be said, is that there is good and evil in the world, and sometimes they collide. Furthermore, sometimes, they exist within the same individual ( Zwillick, 2002).

A false impression is given to the reader if they believe that this story is simply a tale of right versus wrong, if the viewpoint is that the family represents total good and The Misfit represents total evil. This misconception is completely shattered when The Misfit ultimately approaches the grandmother, fully intending to kill her, as it turns out in retrospect. The grandmother thinks that her "goodness" will save her from being killed by The Misfit, when it was her judgmental nature that started the conflict with The Misfit in the first place when she pointed him out as the alleged criminal, and trying to place herself in a superior position to him. Sadly, The Misfit is in reality more powerful than the grandmother, shown by his ending of her life at the end of the story. Overall, the moral of the story is that in the absence of absolute good and/or evil, the outcome of a situation is often tragic.

Symbolism

While the symbols that exist in "A Good Man is Hard to Find" do not appear to be excessively complicated at face value, what they represent and communicate in a more abstract way is where in fact the more meaningful analysis and true appreciation of O'Connor's work can be found.

At first glance, the basis of the story itself- a vacation trip from one state to another- seems simple and innocent enough. However, the intention of the author in depicting a literal journey from one point to another means something entirely different in this story, given the tone of the tale. It is not a far stretch to surmise that O'Connor, in her depiction of a trip from one physical state to another-a state of the United States- is in fact painting a picture of the journey of life, for as the readers of "A Good Man is Hard to Find", this is a journey from which no one in the family physically returns. However, in the course of that physical journey, the family travels through a wide range of emotions- anger, frustration, disappointment, sadness, and in the case of the grandmother, an epiphany that unfortunately comes too late for her, but perhaps not too late for the reader.

The grandmother herself is in fact a symbol as well; symbolically, she can be seen as the dichotomy of good and bad that exists in every individual, which becomes apparent through her statements, actions, and the reactions she provokes from others, especially when it is considered that these others are her family members, whom she is supposed to love more than anyone else in the world, and probably would claim to do so in front of others, but fails to provide in her everyday actions toward the family itself. Within her hatred for certain groups of other people, the reader is forced to take a hard, cold look into their own soul and conscience, for it is fair to say that there is not a person alive who cannot relate to at least disliking a few people, if not an entire group of people en masse, and the disservice the individual does to themselves and others when they feel and act this way.

The rest of the family- son and grandchildren- are symbolic of the continuation of the grandmother's mindset. In the grandmother's son, who is the father of the grandchildren, O'Connor portrays a man who has little patience for his elderly mother, and is hasty to judge and condemn her, much as she is quick to judge and condemn people whom she has never met, but hates them in a wholesale fashion based upon preconceived notions, half truths, and the hatred that likely came to her from her parents as well- a sort of family tradition of unacceptable and hateful behavior.

We can see in the disruptive and poor behavior of the grandchildren that they have seemingly inherited the family traits of discontent, stubbornness, and lack of satisfaction with life itself.

The Misfit himself is symbolic; while the reader may be tempted to view the family as totally good and The Misfit as totally evil, it is not exactly so in the final analysis. It is fair to suggest that the family thinks that they are totally good, as they complain, fight, and criticize others, but their actions show otherwise. Also, the temptation exists to view The Misfit as totally evil, with no redeeming qualities, but once the reader looks closer into the psyche of The Misfit, perhaps he is not completely evil, but is widely understood. While it is true that The Misfit is unfeeling, calculated, and by all appearances the killer of his father, he is in fact taking a closer look into his own soul when he questions the nature of Jesus, faith, good and evil. If a person were in fact a totally automatic monster and killing machine, they would not be using the type of introspection that The Misfit appears to use as the plot unfolds, and as he interacts with the grandmother. Make no mistake, The Misfit is no saint, but he is not 100% unredeemable, nor is he without some traces of remorse- in short, it can be said that The Misfit is symbolic of the remorseful nature of the human heart and the ability of the individual to realize right from wrong and attempt to better understand it.

A rather interesting side note to the use of symbolism in "A Good Man is Hard to Find" comes from other sources that suggest that in writing the story, O'Connor is actually using a short work of literature to represent the concepts set forth in Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales", such as the question of the essential good or bad nature of the human soul, the search for ultimate good, and the ever present evil in the midst of goodness (Browning, 1974).

The common symbolic denominator, so to speak, in the case of the family as well as The Misfit is irony- what appears to be good may in fact be bad and vice versa. Furthermore, it is possible, O'Connor suggests, that there is no such thing as ultimate good and evil, but rather nuances of each are present in everyone, albeit to a stronger degree either way, depending upon the individual (Blythe, et al, 1996).

Summary

Flannery O'Connor, in "A Good Man is Hard to Find", starts out by giving us a look at a dysfunctional family on a vacation, but ultimately, gives us insight into ourselves as well as the nature of good and evil, how they can clash, and how they can co-exist, even in the same person. In closing, let it be understood that the symbolic meaning of stories can often be more powerful than the literal, and in the case of this story, more true words were never said.

References

Blythe, Hal, and Charlie Sweet. "O'Connor's a Good Man is Hard to Find." Explicator 55.1 (1996): 49-51.

Browning, Preston M. Flannery O'Connor. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 1974.

Di Renzo, Anthony. American Gargoyles: Flannery O'Connor and the Medieval Grotesque. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 1995.

Zwillick, David. "Concerning Evil: The Psychology and Cosmology of Insecurity." International Journal of Humanities and Peace 18.1 (2002): 66+.