Plot and "Good Man is Hard to Find"
An Analysis of Plot in O'Connor's "A Good Man is Hard to Find"
Plot, as Aristotle observes, is the representation of an action with a beginning, middle, and an end. Flannery O'Connor's "A Good Man is Hard to Find" is an example of a short story with just such a plot. O'Connor's stories often represent the action of grace, and in this story the action of grace is first seen as lacking, as something that is needed in the Grandmother; then it is prepared for by the trip, and finally it is delivered through the intervention of the Misfit and his meeting with the Grandmother. This paper will show how plot works by using O'Connor's "A Good Man is Hard to Find."
The action of O'Connor's short story is set up in the first paragraph when the Grandmother is described as not wanting to go to Florida. Her will is set against the will of her son and she means to use whatever she can to try to get her way -- even the evil existence of the Misfit (which the newspapers tell her about): "I wouldn't take my children in any direction with a criminal like that" (1). Obviously, the old woman is manipulative, proud and willful. It is also clear (as the next few paragraphs show) that the other people in the house see her as a nuisance.
The Grandmother is the central character of the story and it is with her will that the plot is concerned. The beginning of the plot introduces the Grandmother and the fact that her will is contrary to that of her son (and virtually every other character's as well). Since the plot is...
Good Man Hard Find," short film, "Black Hearts Bleed Red." http://www. Flannery O'Conner's short story "A Good Man is Hard to Find" and Jari Cain Rossi's motion picture "Black Hearts Bleed Red" both address an account involving a dysfunctional American family traveling through a rural scenery and falling victim to a band of ruthless escaped convicts. Rossi's film is an adaptation of the short story, but fails to provide the
Good Man is Hard to Find For the purposes of this essay, I chose Flannery O'Connor's short story "A Good Man is Hard to Find." "A Good Man is Had to Find" is an apt topic for research such as this, because the ambiguity of the story's position regarding a grandmother ultimately responsible for the death of her entire family leads to a wide variety of possible readings, each with
(O'Connor 1088) It is through a horrible act of violence that the grandmother and we understand that things do not always work out as we plan and some stories do not have a happy ending. In "Cathedral," Carver utilizes a less dramatic setting to convey a message to us. In this story, the narrator is uneasy about Robert's visit and does not know how to behave when they first meet. It
Good Man is Hard to Find by Flannery O'Connor. Specifically, it will focus on the use of comedy/humor, foreshadowing, and irony in the work. Flannery O'Connor is one of the South's most well-known writers, and nearly all of her works, including this short story, take place in Southern locales. Her work embodies the Southern lifestyle, which includes close family ties, attention to family roots, and a more laid-back and
Flannery O’Connor’s short story “A Good Man is Hard to Find” details a road trip gone wrong, as a southern family steers themselves right into the hands of a serial killer. The protagonist is a grandmother with skewed social values and norms, as well as the beginnings of cognitive impairment or dementia. When she mistakenly tells her son to head to the wrong state to find a house from her
Kent on the other hand cannot prevent himself from gazing again and again at the man's scar and making all sorts of stupid remarks. He also fails to stop the sailor from controlling him and he is absorbed by -- enslaved to -- his superstitions: This was the real Man with the Gash, the man who had so often robbed him in the spirit. This, then, was the embodied entity of
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