A Good Man is Hard to Find

I have just finished reading the story “A Good Man is Hard to Find” by Flannery O’ Connor and all I can say is wow. I really liked this story. It was a very engaging read.

I noticed a ton of different things about this story and the first thing was that the family was white. When I first started reading this story I thought that they were black until when they were in the car the grandmother said a word that I will only refer to as the n-word. She was referring to a boy waving at them from the side of the road. This was really interesting to me because it also revealed the time period to me, because of the fact that she said this word period and the way that she said it. It was written that she said it as if she was referring to him like it was a normal word to use for him so that meant this probably took place in the thirties or maybe the forties because the grandmother also mentioned not liking Europeans. These were just the biggest of the couple of clues that there were.

The mood of this story shifted in an instant as well. It went from a typical drive of an innocent family to a suspenseful thriller. I think the transition that the writer used was smooth as silk as well. The mood just gradually grew more intense as it went on. I really like how he did that.

He didn’t use that much character change in this story however. The only dynamic character I got from the story was the grandmother. She seemed to be the only character that showed any different emotions throughout the story. Even the parents showed ignorance to what was happening at the end of the story. The Misfit actually did change a little bit at the end which was a really cool change. He was a really coolheaded person until the very end when the grandmother said “You’re one of my babies, You’re one of my own children!”. I didn’t get if she was being serious or if she had just gone crazy but this rattled the misfit to his core and I really enjoyed that change in him even if it was just a small change.

Finally I liked how he made the Misfit. I am a huge fan of the collected calm and somewhat nice villain in literature. I think it is one of the most popular lately as well. This one was different though. He didn’t show any remorse for what he had done but he didn’t show any clear reason as to why he did what he did. He was a really interesting villain. Usually when a villain is questioned as to why he did something he usually gets defensive and rattled, but this guy just stayed calm and answered as best he could and wasn’t rattled at all. He was only rattled by the quote above and I thought the sudden change in his character was really cool.

I changed my mind about my favorite story so far. This is my new favorite story. I know Clary doesn’t care if you like it but I really enjoyed this passage a lot.