A Good Man is Hard to Find Themes

At the story’s end, the Misfit says of the Grandmother, “She would of been a good woman . . . if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life.” Flannery O’Connor may not necessarily believe that being exposed to violence makes us better people, but the message is clear: violence changes us.

As Flannery O’Connor said when delivering remarks on the story, “I have found that violence is strangely…

The characters of “A Good Man is Hard to Find” live by a variety of moral codes, and both the story’s title and the Grandmother’s conversation with Red Sam bring up the idea of goodness, and what makes a “good man.” In the end, as the Grandmother still insists that the Misfit—who has just murdered her entire family—is a “good man,” the question lingers: does being “good” depend on one’s internal character or…

Only at the story’s end do we get the slightest hint of familial love. Not only does the Grandmother shout “Bailey Boy! Bailey Boy!” as the only real affectionate moment inside her family, but she then goes on to refer to the Misfit as her own son. These moments of familial love, arriving only when the Grandmother faces death, appear in stark contrast to the rest of the story, which is filled with family members…

The story’s title itself refers to the apparent moral decline witnessed by the Grandmother and others. There was a time, the Grandmother believes, when it was not so difficult to find good men, though we might wonder if that was ever actually true. To the Grandmother, though, the story’s action supports this belief. When stranded after a car crash, the family is not tended to by friendly neighbors, but by a killer and his henchmen…