Analysis of Plot Structure and Setting

Structure

The story is rather straightforward and chronological, The viewpoint is in third person, mostly following from the perspective of the grandmother,

Setting

From a couple of clues in the story I would say that the story is set some time during the 1940s or early 1950s. Considering that the story was published in 1955, the author was probably writing for the setting of her modern day.

Central Conflict

The central conflict in this story occurs near the end. Besides some foreshadowing throughout the story before the conflict occurs, the conflict and its outcome, is quite a surprise. On the surface it may appear that the conflict is mostly a physical one between the family members: June Star, John Wesley, Bailey, the mom and the grandmother and the trio of bloody criminals. In actuality though, the conflict is primarily emotional, though also physical, between the grandmother, who could be considered the protagonist of the story, and the escaped criminal convict dubbed the “Misfit” who could be considered to be the antagonist of the story.

Chance/Coincidence

The fact that the grandmother decides to bring Pitty Sing the Cat, for his own personal safety(so it won’t be “asphyxiated”) and that this same cat eventually causes the car accident is not only ironic, but not especially likely. The family happening to see someone on the abandoned dirt road, immediately proceeding said car wreck is even less likely. The chance of the people in the car coming to “help” them turning out to be the the Misfit with two other criminals named Hiram, and Bobby Lee, is EVEN less likely. I think though that these coincidences and unlikely happenings do not detract from the story in any way, in fact this story DEPENDS on them. Without coincidence playing a large part of this story, the story would be nothing more than an account of an average family’s road trip.

Rising action and Suspense

Besides the morbid foreshadowing in the first paragraph of the story, and the foreshadowing provided at Red Sammy’s through the conversation between Red’s wife, Red, and the grandmother. We as the reader are not especially worried for the family, the uneventful trip preceding the car wreck, and the somewhat humorous nature of the story so far gives you a sense of safety for these characters. Also, the characters are somewhat unlikeable, and so we are not especially worried for there lives. This does somewhat downplay the suspense to a certain extent. The first real action in this piece is the car wreck, it shocks the reader, at how quickly the happy family vacation has turned into something more horrible. We still feel a safety for the family, because no one is hurt, and there still a large element of humor present. The children June and John are in a “frenzy of delight”, and they run around happily screaming, “We've had an ACCIDENT!”, they are also disappointed that no one was killed. The grandmother “curled up under the dashboard" hopes she is injured, "so that Bailey's wrath would not come down on her all at once.” And this whole situation is actually due to a somewhat humorous lapse of memory, where she realizes that the plantation they were heading to is not even in Georgia but actually in Tennessee. All of these things down play the accident, and give the reader a sense of security for these characters. It is not until the Misfit shows up, and we see the elements of foreshadowing fulfilled and we begin to worry for their lives, that the first real suspense and action appear. Bailey begins to realize that they are not going to be helped by these individuals, and John Wesley notices that they have guns. As we begin to see the emotional disintegration of the family, the suspense begins to build. The reader soon realizes that all the family is probably going to die. First Bailey and little John Wesley are led off, and the reader wonders what is going to happen to them, until we hear the two shots that clue us to their deaths. Then the mother, her baby, and little June Star are led off and presumably shot. Now all that is left of this unhappy family is the grandmother. She pleads for her life to the Misfit, telling him to "pray" and telling if he would that "Jesus would help you". This is very suspenseful because of the emotional tenseness, and the fact that the grandmothers attempts seem to be having an affect on the Misfit. He says the he wished he had been their with Jesus, that it would have been different, if, "I had been their I would have known."

Climax

Finally the grandmother believing she has gotten to the Misfit, and that he will surely spare her life, in a burst of sensitivity and unselfishness she says, "Why you are one of my babies. You're one of my own children!", whilst touching the Misfit on the shoulder. This causes the Misfit to spring "back as if a snake had bitten him" and shoot her "three times through the chest". This is the most suspenseful part of the story and also the highest point of action, suspenseful , emotionally, physically and the highest point of physical action and violence, the climax as the character we have followed the whole story, the grandmother, is brutally murdered by the Misfit.

Falling action

Now, after the death of the family, we see Misfit and the two other criminals come back together, after disposing of the bodies. The Misfit states that the grandmother, "would of been a good woman if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life"After a short conversation between Bobby Lee and the Misfit where Bobby states that killing is fun and the Misfit replies, contradicting himself from earlier in the story, that it “is no pleasure in life”, the story ends. The author wants to show the changes first in the grandmother, and also in the Misfit because of their dialogue, the grandmother, right before her death, showed some true unselfish sensitivity to the Misfit before he shot her. The Misfit now realizes that killing is not as fun as he stated earlier when he said that there is, "No pleasure but meanness".

Theme

“It isn’t a soul in this green world of God’s that you can trust. And I don’t count nobody out of that, not nobody,” she repeated, looking at Red Sammy.

A writing of true literary merit has not only a simple moral, but a complicated theme. Often this theme cannot be stated in a sentence, but is a number of entwined ideas. This is the case with O’Connor’s A Good Man is Hard to Find. However one theme stands far above the others—the one to which the title and an entire conversation are devoted. A good man is indeed hard to find if we refuse to acknowledge the goodness even of those surrounding us.

O’Connor presents this theme throughout the whole story, but chooses to reveal it most clearly in The Tower, a restaurant at which the family has stopped for lunch. We are presented with a conversation primarily between the grandmother and Red Sammy (the restaurant owner), in which it is agreed that “people are certainly not nice like they used to be.” Even as they say it, both look down on those around them, who could themselves be classified as “good.” In the grandmother’s case it is her son; Bailey is a good man—for one thing he has taken his complaining mother not only on vacation, but into his house—but she looks down on him, partly because she sees herself as far more than she really is. In Red Sammy’s case it is his wife; she works hard and well, but somehow he seems only to notice when she needs to be doing something more.

“People are certainly not nice like they used to be”, the grandmother complains. She is right that there is much evil in the world, but she is closed-minded towards the goodness in the people around her. A large part of her problem is in her vanity, for she seems to consider herself nearly perfect, and looks negatively at others. For example, there was music playing in the restaurant and “[the grandmother] asked Bailey if he would like to dance, but he only glared at her. He didn’t have a naturally sunny disposition like she did and trips made him nervous. The grandmother’s brown eyes were very bright. She swayed her head from side to side and pretended she was dancing in her chair.”

Red Sammy’s wife is a hardworking, patient woman. She takes the family’s order, smiles politely in the face of a flat insult, and balances five dinner plates at once. However, the only statements directed towards her by Red Sam are negative—“quit lounging on the counter and hurry up with these people’s order.” But then he sits down sighing to chat with the grandmother. “You can’t win,” he complained, “These days you don’t know who to trust…. A good man is hard to find. Everything is getting terrible.”

It seems to be a general consensus among the characters in this story that a good man is hard to find. But even as various characters say it, they ignore the people surrounding them, who, though not gods, are hardworking and devoted. This seems to be a major theme of O’Connor’s A Good Man is Hard to Find.

Point of View

“The Grandmother didn’t want to go to Florida. She wanted to visit some of her connections in east Tennessee and she was seizing at every chance to change Bailey’s mind.” From these first two sentences we know not only that the grandmother is headstrong and nagging, but we know the precise reason for which she does not want to go to Florida. But somehow we never discover why the rest of the family does.

A Good Man is Hard to Find is written in the third person limited point of view. Any background information, characterization, opinions, and occurrences are given to us from a biased grandmother’s point of view. This aspect of the writing really brings it to life; even if opposite the grandmother in age and character, each of us experience this story in the same way we experience our own lives—from a single point of view. In no way is the story’s power limited by this choice of point of view—in fact, the characters come immediately to life through the grandmother’s comments and thoughts. These last open a whole new dimension to the story as we compare the grandmother’s perception of herself with what others think of her.

O’Connor is in no way compressing the power of her story by choosing to write it from a single point of view. One might initially suspect that we cannot get a true idea of the characters and situation, since everything we are told is from a biased point of view. Quite the contrary, we discover more about each character through grandmother’s eyes than we might otherwise. A single—and often scornful—thought of the grandmother can give us great insight into a character’s personality. For example, the day that the family leaves for vacation, from the grandmother’s point of view: “The children’s mother still had on slacks and still had her head tied up in a green kerchief, but the grandmother had on a navy blue straw sailor hat with a bunch of white violets on the brim and a navy blue dress with a small white dot on the print. Her collars and cuffs were white organdy trimmed with lace and at her neckline she had pinned a purple spray of cloth violets containing a sachet. In case of an accident, anyone seeing her dead on the highway would know at once that she was a lady.” Here my imagination comes into play, and a ready picture of both characters discussed here comes quickly to mind. The mother has surely been busy all morning, the driving force that got the family out the door; tidying the house, putting together a lunch for on the road, and getting the family up, dressed, fed, and packed. Like any good mother, she has sacrificed her own time for that of her family, and has not had time to mess with her hair and has simply tied it up under a kerchief. She is wearing clothes suitable for the work to be done and comfortable for a long car ride. The grandmother, on the other hand, is decked out in her Sunday best, and scorning her daughter-in-law for not following her example. However, she could scarcely have done much in helping the family out the door—after hours were spent in her closet and at the mirror, she would have been afraid of wrinkling her stiff proper clothing.

Not only does O’Connor clearly portray characterization by choosing the third person limited, but she also adds a whole new dimension to her story: the grandmother’s opinion of herself versus what others think of her. We are given the impression throughout the story that the grandmother feels above her son and daughter-in-law, but we cannot help but feel sorry for the two putting up with their mother. When the grandmother dresses up before the car ride, we do not think of her kindly, but as prissy and inconsiderate. When the grandmother writes down the mileage on the car, she feels aloof—“it would be interesting to say how many miles they had been when they got back.” But we get the impression that she is rather odd and childish.

A Good Man is Hard to Find is written entirely in the third person limited point of view, which greatly adds to the power of the story. The characters come alive as they really are—not simply as who the grandmother portrays them to be. Also, a whole new dimension is developed as we compare the grandmother’s opinion of herself with the impression she makes on others, including ourselves.

Analysis of symbolism, foreshadowing, irony, and humor

Symbolism


The automobile
The automobile carries the family from place to place and is controlled by the people inside. It is essentially a shell, representing the body of a person, which carries the soul and mind.


The sky
In this story, the sky represents three variations of a single symbolic theme: that the sky represents a state of mind.

"When there was nothing else to do they played a game by choosing a cloud and making the other two guess what shape it suggested. John Wesley took one the shape of a cow and June Star guessed a cow and John Wesley said, no, an automobile, and June Star said he didn't play fair, and they began to slap each other over the grandmother."

At the beginning of the family's journey, the sky is full of clouds. If you picture the sky as a container of thought, then clouds would represent blockage of thought, misinterpreted meaning, and blindness. Just as the two children have their own perceptions of what the clouds really look like, so does the grandmother have her own perception of what goodness really is. There are "clouds" in her mind that prevent her from seeing the "sun" -- or the light of truth. She interprets the clouds in her mind as the real thing.

"[The Misfit] looked at the six of them huddled together in front of him and he seemed to be embarrassed as if he couldn't think of anything to say. 'Ain't a cloud in the sky,' he remarked, looking up at it. 'Don't see no sun but don't see no cloud neither.'"

When the family encounters the Misfit, the sky is devoid of everything. There are no clouds, and therefore no blindness of thought, but there is no light either, which means there is no truth. The state of the sky in this scene reflects the grandmother's own empty state of mind during trouble. There is no good or evil in her thoughts, no blindness and no sight. There is simply emptiness.
"Hiram and Bobby Lee returned from the woods and stood over the ditch, looking down at the grandmother who half sat and half lay in a puddle of blood with her legs crossed under her like a child's and her face smiling up at the cloudless sky."

When the grandmother is shot by the Misfit, the sky is still empty, but this time it seems to signify peace instead of emptiness of thought. There are no "clouds" blocking the grandmother's sight, and it is not mentioned that there is no light, but perhaps there is some shining over the tops of the trees in the woods.


The old house
This symbolizes temptation. If you view the highway that the family is driving on as the “true path” of life, then when the Grandmother tells the children about the old plantation house with the secret treasure, she is really tempting them. The house is a temptation to her as well.


The dirt road
When the family turns off the highway (symbolizing the right path of life) onto the dirt road that was supposed to lead to the old plantation house, it symbolizes that the family has fallen onto the sinful path. The dirt road is described as being “hilly” and having sudden washes and curves. Similarly, the sinful path, although tempting and desirable, is more dangerous and hard to travel than one assumes.

However, by the end of the story, readers realize that the straight, easy road of life that the characters were on before they turned onto the dirt road was not the right path either. Spiritually, the family (especially the Grandmother, who professed to be a “good lady”) was heading the wrong way. Their views of Christianity, goodness, and grace were all mixed up. It is ironic that the Grandmother's encounter with the Misfit on the "sinful path" is what it took to lead her to God's grace.


The ditch
This symbolizes how the characters are spiritually stuck in a ditch. They cannot move forward in their faith, nor can they move back.


The woods
In the scene with the Misfit, the family members (except for the Grandmother) are taken to the woods and shot one-by-one. The woods, symbolizing death, reek of fear and the unknown. It is behind the Grandmother the entire time, just as death is always behind us. It can either consume us, as it did the rest of the family, or we can die in the light of God, as did the Grandmother.


The Grandmother’s death
“The Misfit sprang back as if a snake had bitten him and shot [the grandmother] three times through the chest.” Here, the number of times the Misfit shot her might hold some symbolic meaning. Christ died on the cross and rose on the third day. The Grandmother was spiritually dead all her life, but after the third shot through her chest, she died physically and became alive spiritually. Perhaps this symbolizes that she rose like Christ – not as a mimic of Him, but as a believer does when they accept Him: they die and are born again.



Foreshadowing


The six graves
“They passed a large cotton field with five or six graves fenced in the middle of it, like a small island.” It is fitting that the Grandmother should notice how many graves there are: There are six members in the family. There will be six graves to be dug for them after the story.


Toomsboro
This is the name of the town that the family comes across. Its name implies death, foreshadowing the family’s own death.


The black hearse-like automobile driven by the Misfit
A hearse is the typical type of vehicle used to carry the coffin for a funeral. Its name implies death, and the Misfit, who is the bringer of death in this story, is the one driving it.



Irony


- The story starts out with a family going to take a summer vacation and ends up with all of them being murdered. Not something you would expect…

- The grandmother says that she “wouldn’t take [her] children in any direction with a criminal like [the Misfit] aloose in it. [She] couldn’t answer to her conscious if [she] did.” Ironically, this is exactly what she does when she tempts her family into visiting the old house.

- The grandmother dresses up nicely so that “in case of an accident, anyone seeing her dead on the highway would know at once that she was a lady.” It’s ironic that she really does end up dead, but she knows before her death that her definition of “goodness” or about being a lady cannot be defined by wealth or appearance.

- "Bailey and the children's mother and the baby sat in front and they left Atlanta at eight forty-five with the mileage on the car at 55890. The grandmother wrote this down because she thought it would be interesting to say how many miles they had been when they got back." These sentences are ironic because the family never gets back home.

- “But nobody’s killed” said June Star after the car accident on the dirt road. This is ironic because the whole family ends up dead by the end of the story.

- “Listen,” Bailey began, “we’re in a terrible predicament! Nobody realizes what this is!” Bailey thinks he realizes the predicament, but he really doesn’t, and neither does the entire family. O’Connor might be referring to the family’s religious state here – a part of them that they are each blind to, but that the audience can see (this can be considered dramatic irony).



Humor


This family is at once humorous and dislikeable. O’Connor skillfully depicts them without any bias or comment, letting the audience actually see them for who they really are. She does not flatter them nor does she condemn them. She simply describes their actions and thoughts.

The things that the Grandmother does at the beginning of the story are amusing. Her actions are very entertaining to read about, but are simultaneously revealing how self-centered and blind she is.

O’Connor uses humor in the story to reflect human nature’s oddity and pettiness.

Flannery O'Connor: Great Author

Early Life

Flannery O’Connor was born March 25, 1925 in Savanna Georgia. She was an only child, who lost her father from lupus when she was fifteen. Despite this and suffering during the Great Depression, she managed to finish high school and go to Georgia State College for Women. She was a social science major with a few corses in English. She made cartoons and poems for the school literary magazine. At the school, she made many relationships and connections that would last throughout her career.

Career

However short, O’Connor’s stories made during her career are still considered great works. She published two novels, Wise Blood and The Violent Bear it Away, as well as two collections of short stories, A Good Man is Hard to Find and Everything that Rises Must Converge. Other works were published after her death by friends. O’Connor won three O. Henry awards for short fiction, received prestigious grants and fellowships from the National Institute of Arts and Letters, the Kenyon Review, and the Ford Foundation, and was awarded honorary doctoral degrees by Smith and St. Mary's colleges. In death her honors have continued with a National Book Award (for her collected stories) and a National Book Critics Circle award (for her collected letters).

Illness and Death

Flannery’s father died from the same sickness that she eventually fell ill to, lupus. While Flannery O’Connor was finishing her first novel, the first symptoms appeared. In 1951, she was diagnosed with lupus. On August 3rd 1964, O’Connor died in a hospital after falling into a coma.

Writing Style

Flannery O’Connor was a southern gothic writer whose roman catholic background greatly influenced her style. Her works illiterate her fascination with the grotesque. Very often in her stories, an ironic, unexpected, and disturbing event takes place totally taking the reader off guard. Amateur literary critics sometimes take this as unnecessary and write off O’Connor as a disturbing writer. This is not the case. Though her works may be a little unsettling, the themes greatly challenge the mind. Her works are almost always message oriented, but she does not make this too obvious. Critics of her work often describe her style as "stark." Indeed, O’Connor did use a stark, almost mundane style and a consistent structure that can be boring. But this only helps to amplify the unexpected event. The change from a consistent, uneventful story to a dramatic turn of events (often disturbing) multiplies the power of her story over the reader’s emotions and senses. These are the tools that she used in her works, that brought her so much respect.

Analysis of Characterization

by Rachel Czarniak

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The dictionary describes the word characterization as “the creation and convincing representation of fictitious characters.” Perrine’s Literature, however, gives a deeper description of characterization based on the type of fiction it was pertaining to, literary or commercial. Commercial fiction has little use for true characterization because of its primary usage of plot. Fiction of true literary merit, however, greatly involves the use of characterization. Getting past the surface and truly depicting a character to its core is fundamental in the artistry of a short story. Throughout this essay we will be discussing types of characters, appropriate changes in personage (using two of O’Connor’s characters), and the importance of characterization in comparison to real life, all in connection with Flannery O’Connor’s short story, “A Good Man is Hard to Find.”

While the story has many supporting characters, the main character is the Grandmother. She easily meets the criteria of an acceptable character within literary fiction, displaying very lifelike qualities. She is easy to relate to, partly because of the fact that she is a stock character: a typical grandmotherly figure. Her behavior is consistent, without any abrupt detours that are not accounted for, and her every word or deed arises chiefly from inner motives, which is the sign of a true and lifelike character.

Another of O’Connor’s main characters is the Misfit. His character is markedly different from the Grandmother on multiple standpoints. The Misfit is an unprecedented person, most likely not like anyone you or I would encounter in real life. While the Grandmother is easy to predict from the beginning of the story, the Misfit is more mysterious. His behavior is consistent throughout the story portion that we see—he is characterized by bitterness towards life situations and apathy towards his victims. His behavioral motives are not as well accounted for in the story, however, but they are hinted at within his dialogue with the Grandmother about his past life. His character is still relatable in his bitterness and anger; these qualities are perhaps displayed in a melodramatic way, but are applicable nonetheless.

In a good work of fiction, most authors have at least one dynamic character. A dynamic character is one who encounters change throughout the course of the story, and is shown as a more in-depth and cultivated character by the end. Perrine’s also gives stipulations as to the changes that may occur in literary fiction—of course, these changes must remain parallel with the character’s previous development, as well as having adequate incentive and plenty of time for the adjustment to occur. One of the Grandmother’s changes—one regarding her emphasis on religion—is key in the course of the story, as well as the reader’s understanding of her character. Her sudden outburst of faith at the point of death helps us to read into her character and understand her motivations and her thoughts. Her change of attitude and suddenly desperate position display a selfishness and an insecurity that were previously unknown to such a degree. They also help readers to view her character as an extension of real-life feelings and emotions. Surprisingly, contrary to her seemingly predictable character, the events of the story really bring out a change in the Grandmother that gives her the title of a dynamic character.

A truly commendable author not only uses his characters to entertain his readers, but uses them as of key to understanding the real world around us. Characters in literary fiction should be able to parallel real people and circumstances, and can be used by an estimable author to better understand human nature. In this short story, the author uses her characters’ encounter with death to bring out true feelings and emotions that humans encounter when presented with something scary and previously ignored. She also uses Bailey’s responses to his mother as a window into the mind of an aggravated son, and the way we can easily take for granted the family members given to us because of small irritations. O’Connor uses many instances of her characters’ lifelike qualities to point back to real life attributes.

Characterization is a valuable tool that can be used by authors in minor or extraordinary ways to enlighten readers in both their works of fiction and in the real world around us. Character types, changes, and parallels are only a few ways that characterization can be used to its full potential in works of literary fiction, as they are used in Flannery O’Connor’s short story.