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Paper - A Good Man is Hard to Find
Flannery O’Connor, (1925-1964 was
an American writer who wrote novels and short stories focused on
humanity's spiritual deformity and flight from redemption. Her
works earned her a unique place in 20th-century American
fiction. Her works includes the novels namely ‘Wise Blood’
(1952) and ‘The Violent Bear It Away’ (1960) and the short-story
collections are ‘A Good Man Is Hard to Find’ (1955) and
‘Everything that Rises Must Converge’.
In the story ‘A Good Man Is Hard to Find’, Connor has narrated
the episode from the grandmother’s point of view. Like most
elderly people, the grandmother thinks of her as the most well
informed person and always trying to teach moralities and talk
about past. The family consisting of parents and three children
wanted to go to Florida but the grandmother wished to visit some
of her relations in east Tennessee. The family did not agree
with grandmother. She showed her son a newspaper report about a
killer who escaped from the prison. She warned her not to go to
Florida as the killer is reportedly in the surroundings heading
towards Florida. However, nobody took a serious notice of what
she said and started for Florida. Grandmother took along her cat
despite of the resistance of her son, as she feared that if the
cat is left alone at home, it might hurt himself.
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On their way they stopped by a roadside restaurant to have
sandwiches. The grandmother discussed the glories of past with
the restaurant owner while they ate their food. Both of them
talked about the memories of past when people used to be good
and honest and possessed high ethical and moral values. After
taking little break they restarted their journey. On the way the
grandmother suddenly recalled a house she visited once in her
youth. She knew that Bailey, her son, would not waste his time
on visiting an old house. She therefore, started telling myths
about that house to arouse the interest of the children. It did
and the children started forcing their father to visit the
place. The father submitted to the children’s wish and turned
back towards the house. While driving on the muddy road,
grandmother suddenly shuddered with some horrible thought and
the disturbance made the cat sprung out of his basket onto the
shoulders of Bailey in the driving seat. The sudden blow made
him out of balance and car turned round and landed right-side-up
in a gorge off the side of the road. There they stopped
shivering of fear and sat in the gorge beside the road.
Grandmother was embarrassed as when she recalled that the house
was not there but in Tennessee and was thinking of her
responsible for the accident. In the meantime they saw a car
approaching and grandmother waved it to stop. The car stopped
with three men in it. One of them looked familiar to grandmother
and all of a sudden she recognized him as the killer of the
newspaper story. She started telling her old lesson of
moralities and goodness to the killers but in the end they
killed all six.
The question now is that who is responsible for the incident?
Apparently the attitude of grandmother seems to be responsible
for it. In the first place, she forced her son to go to house
that was not even located there. Afterwards when they came
across the killers, she announced to recognize them that made
the killers to eliminate the family.
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Had she ever committed any folly was not intentional but of
innocence. We cannot blame anyone for the accident but fate. The
murder of the family would have been prevented if the killer
been a good man as grandmother told him. However, it’s a truth
that a good man is always hard to find.
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