1
A Good Man Is Hard to Find (1955)

• Flannery OConnor

2
Flannery OConnor (1925-1964)

• American Southern writer of short stories and
  novels known for their depiction of spiritual
  insight in extreme situations
• Born in Savannah, Georgia Georgia State College
  for Women started writing stories and drawing
  cartoons devout Roman Catholic all her life
• Received M.F.A. from University of Iowa Writers
  Workshop
• Contrast between polished, neat form of stories
  and grotesque, unsettling content

3
OConnor with Self-Portrait
4
(No Transcript)
5
Flannery OConnor (1925-1964)

• Novels Wise Blood (1952) The Violent Bear It
  Away (1960) Short Story collections A Good Man
  Is Hard to Find (1955) Everything That Rises
  Must Converge (1965)
• Developed lupus after first novel, returned to
  Milledgeville, GA, to her mothers farmraised
  peacocks and wrote

6
Doubles

• An unsettling story of a grandmothers unlikely
  recognition of a serial killer as being like one
  of her own children
• OConnors most famous story because it
  dramatizes profound modern fears of actually
  encountering the random violence we see daily in
  the mass media

7
Grandmother

• Sees herself as a lady in case of an
  accident, anyone seeing her dead on the highway
  would know at once that she was a lady (12)
• Racist Oh look at the cute little pickaninny!
  (18)
• Nostalgic for the antebellum South the old
  plantation (45)

8
Grandmother

• Childish and domineering Complains about going
  to Florida but is first in the car
• Antagonistic relationship with son Bailey hides
  cat in basket in car Bailey glared at her when
  she asked him to dance (29)
• Full of clichés Europe was entirely to blame
  for the way things were now (44)
• Superficial writes down cars mileage (11)

9
G Misfit, Phases 1-3 Celebrity

• Phase 1 G reads about M in the newspaper (1)
• Phase 2 G meets M in person and feels as if she
  had known him all her life but she could not
  recall who he was (75)
• Phase 3 G recognizes M Youre the Misfit! I
  recognized you at once! (82) M pleased, but
  says better if you had not

10
G M, Ph. 4 Lady/Gentleman

• G appeals to class You wouldnt shoot a lady,
  would you? (86) I know you come from nice
  people (88)
• M I would hate to have to Yes mam, finest
  in world (89) but good manners appear absurd in
  this situation
• Good afternoon (74) I pre-chate that, lady
  (92) Im sorry I dont have on a shirt before
  you ladies we borrowed these (99)

11
G M, Ph. 4 Lady/Gentleman

• G I just know youre a good man/ not common
  (98)
• M No, Im notbut not worst I thinker (99)
• G You could be honest, live a comfortable life
  (104)

12
G M, Ph. 5 Religion

• G Notices his thin shoulder blades. Do you
  every pray?
• M Nome (106-107) I was a gospel singer,
  etc.
• G Pray, pray (110)
• M I was sent to the penitentiary, but I forget
  why (113) he cant remember

13
G M, Ph. 5 Religion

• G If you pray, Jesus would help you
• M Yes but I dont want no hep (118-21)
• G Alone with M., says Jesus, Jesus
• M Jesus thown everything off balance I call
  myself Misfit because I cant make what I done
  wrong fit what all I gone through in punishment
  (129)
• This is also the familys experience of the
  Misfits violence

14
G M, Ph. 5 Religion

• G appeals to religion, class, offers money (131)
• M Jesus shouldnt have raised the dead He
  thown everything off balance now its
  either/or If Jesus is true, then you follow him
  if not, then do meanness (134)
• G Maybe He didnt raise the dead (135)

15
G M, Ph. 6 Connection

• M I wasnt there. . . . if I had of been there
  I would of known and I wouldnt be like I am now
  (136)
• His voice seemed about to crack and the
  grandmothers head cleared for an instant
• G Why youre one of my babies. Youre one of my
  own children!
• G reaches out and touches M on shoulder M shoots
  her 3 times (136)

16
G M, Ph. 7 Aftermath

• G in puddle of blood, her face smiling up at the
  cloudless sky (137)
• M She would of been a good woman if it had been
  somebody there to shoot her every minute of her
  life (140)
• M Its no real pleasure in life (142)

17
Misfit Bailey

• Last words between G. Bailey Mamma, wait on
  me! Come back this instant! (96-97)
• Misfit puts on Baileys shirt (123) The
  grandmother couldnt name what the shirt reminded
  her of.
• Misfit becomes linked to G.s son

18
Accident

• Weve had an ACCIDENT! shouted 3X by children.
  Accident is turning point
• Grandmother is doubly the cause
• Her idea to see the plantation, invents idea of
  secret paneland she forgot it was in Tennessee
• She hid the cat in the basket

19
Accident

• Accident throws her life off balance her being a
  lady doesnt protect her from random violence in
  fact, her nostalgia for plantation life leads to
  her death
• Plantation graveyard with 5 or 6 graves (22)
• Gone With the Wind (24)

20
Grandmother Misfit Doubles

• Grandmother recognizes Misfit as like a son, in
  need of her love
• Misfit seems to recognize what the Grandmother
  has achieved (She would of been a good woman),
  and his need for herbut rejects love, choosing
  meanness instead

21
OConnors comments

• It is the extreme situation that best reveals
  what we are essentially the man in the violent
  situation reveals those qualities least
  dispensable in his personality.
• I have found that violence is strangely capable
  of returning my characters to reality and
  preparing them to accept their moment of grace.

22
OConnors comments

• I often ask myself what makes a story work . . .
  and I have decided that it is probably some
  action, some gesture of a character that is
  unlike any other in the story. . . . This would
  have to be an action which was both totally right
  and totally unexpected

23
OConnors comments

• The Grandmother is at last alone, facing the
  Misfit. Her head clears for an instant and she
  realizes, even in her limited way, that she is
  responsible for the man before her and joined to
  him by ties of kinship which have their roots
  deep in the mystery she has been merely prattling
  about so far. And at this point, she does the
  right thing, makes the right gesture.

24
OConnors comments

• I prefer to think that, however unlikely this
  may seem, the old ladys gesture, like the
  mustard-seed, will grow to be a great crow-filled
  tree in the Misfits heart, and will be enough of
  pain to him there to turn him into the prophet he
  was meant to become. But thats another story.