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 relaxed way of looking at the world. In this short story, the matriarch of the family is The Grandmother, and she plays a key role in the story and in the story's outcome. Her impetus sets the family out on their adventure and leads to the inevitable conclusion. This is a story with humor, irony, and a heavy sense of foreboding, and yet it is enjoyable, if predictable, to the very end. O'Connor is a master of characterization, and here,…...

mla

References

Drake, Robert. Flannery O'Connor: A Critical Essay. William B. Eerdmans/Publisher, 1966.

Merton, Thomas. "Flannery O'Connor; A Prose Elegy," in Critical Essays on Flannery O "Connor, edited by Melvin J. Friedman and Beverly Lyon Clark, G.K. Hall & Co., pp. 68-71.

O'Connor, Flannery. "On Her Own Work," in her Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose, edited by Sally Fitzgerald and Robert Fitzgerald, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1969, pp. 107-18.

Stephens, Martha. The Question of Flannery O'Connor. Louisiana State University Press.

Flannery O'Connor
Education: Reading

Paraphrase

Instructions:

The following assignment is based on your reading of Flannery O'Connor's "A Good Man is Hard to Find" (OCR pp. 249-261) and on Claire Katz's critical essay, "The Function of Violence in O'Connor's Fiction" (OCR p. 263). (You can also find this assignment in Literature to Go (OCR) p. 263. Click on the highlight "Considerations.")?

Answer question #2: To what extent might "A Good Man is Hard to Find" be accurately described as a story "in which a character attempts to live autonomously, to define…values, only to be jarred back to…'reality' -- the recognition of helplessness in the face of contingency…" (paragraph 2)? Format: rite your response in standard essay style. DO INLCUDE a separate orks Cited page. Use either MLA or APA style.

To what extent might "A Good Man is Hard to Find" be accurately described as a story "in which a character attempts to live autonomously, to…...

mla

Works Cited

Katz, Claire. "The Function of Violence in O'Connor's Fiction." OCR.

O'Connor, Flannery. "A Good Man is Hard to Find." OCR.

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 distant memories, the grandmother sets in motion a chain of events that leads to the death of her whole family. Using violent imagery, Flannery O’Connor provides an inherently pessimistic tale with a nihilistic theme.
The title of the story refers to a line delivered by a minor character, Red Sammy, the restaurant owner. Red Sammy and the grandmother are from the same generation, which waxes nostalgic about what they believe to have been better times after discussing the serial killer on…...

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 its own adherents and defenders. Upon reading this story, I immediately questioned the grandmother's role in the story, and especially whether or not the story portrayed her in a positive or negative light, because although at points in the story she appears positive in contrast to the other characters, she is ultimately shown to be reactive, shortsighted, and altogether incapable of protecting either her family or herself. Using Google Scholar, I searched for academic essays and books discussing "A Good…...

mla

Works Cited

Bandy, Stephen . "One of my babies": the misfit and the grandmother." Studies in Short Fiction.

Winter. (1996): 1-7. Print.

Desmond, John. "Flannery O'Connor's Misfit and the Mystery of Evil." Renascence: Essays on Values in Literature. 56. (2004): 129-37. Print.

Evans, Robert C. "Cliches, Superficial Story-Telling, and the Dark Humor of Flannery

Good Man is Hard to Find
Flannery O'Conner's short story, a Good Man is Hard to Find is a modern parable. The story is laced with symbolism and religious subtext. In many ways the piece is similar to classical Greek plays about pride and retribution.

efore launching into a discussion of O'Conner's story it is important to understand the woman and her motivations to write. O'Conner was born in Savannah, Georgia in 1925 to her devout Catholic parents, Edward and Regina O'Conner. Flannery spent her youth attending Catholic parochial schools. In 1938, the family moved to a town just outside Atlanta called Milledgeville where Flannery continued her education. Unfortunately, her father would ultimately die in this town as the result of complications from the disease lupus. Flannery went on to Georgia State College for Women and then proceeded to the State University of Iowa where she received her MFA in 1947.

It…...

mla

Bibliography

O'Conner, Flannery. A Good Man is Hard to Find. 1953.  http://xroads.virginia.edu/~DRBR/goodman.html 

Galloway, Patrick. The Dark Side of Flannery O'Conner. 1996.  http://www.cyberpat.com/essays/flan.html 

Mitchel, J. Tin Jesus: The Intellectual in Selected Short Fiction of Flannery O'Conner. 2000. http://sunset.backbone.olemiss.edu/~jmitchel/flannery.htm

Coles, Robert. Flannery O'Conner's South. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State UP, 1980.

Flannery O'Connor's short story "A Good Man Is Hard to Find" provides readers with ideas related to morality and to the fact that society has the tendency to put labels on things. The central characters in the story form a rather dysfunctional family, with the father being pressured by his mother to do a series of things that he doesn't want to while she appears to leave in an imaginary world. The idea of good is used to such a degree in the story that it eventually comes to lose significance. The grandmother seems to be obsessed with this respective concept and uses it to describe a series of things. Instead of actually making it possible for readers to gain a more complex understanding of the idea, she brings confusion to the topic as a result of generalizing it and using it in context where it does not necessarily…...

mla

Works cited:

O'Connor, Flannery, "A Good Man Is Hard To Find."

She does so initially through semi-sincere flattery: "you shouldn't call yourself The Misfit because I know you're a good man at heart. I can just look at you and tell," (147). Later, she gets under the Misfit's skin by touching him, an act that causes him to shoot her.
It is precisely the Grandmother's willful desire to control other people and situations that the entire family ends up dead. For example, it was the Grandmother's fault that Bailey took the wrong turn; in fact the Grandmother uses cunning lies to lure the family into going to visit the plantation: "There was a secret panel in this house,' she said craftily, not telling the truth but wishing that she were," (143). hen she realized her error, she did not admit it, preferring to remain in control of the situation. Her silent embarrassment caused the accident that led to the encounter with…...

mla

Works Cited

O'Connor, Flannery. "A Good Man is Hard to Find." Retrieved 28 Oct 2005 at  http://xroads.virginia.edu/~DRBR/goodman.html

(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 is only through a conversation about cathedrals that allows the narrator to discover something about Robert and himself. The setting is significant because this is the place where the narrator and Robert meet and where the narrator has his epiphany.

The mood of the home changes from negative to positive.

Sight becomes significant in the story as well because that is what the entire story revolves around and that is what ultimately brings the two men closer. Because the narrator attempts to…...

mla

Works Cited

Carver, Raymond. "Cathedral." Cathedral. New York: Vintage Contemporaries. 1983.

O'Connor, Flannery. "A Good Man is Hard to Find." Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama. X.J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia, eds. New York: Longman. 1999. pp. 352-363.

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…...

mla

Works Cited

O'Connor, Flannery. "A Good Man is Hard to Find." A Good Man is Hard to Find and Other Short Stories. NY: Harcourt Brace, 1981.

Both have in their own way gone against the norm. When Babli, embittered by the men in her life, and after losing hope of ever having the man she loves decides to have a baby alone, she breaks her fathers will. For in a traditional Hindu family the girl accepts the match set up by the father, but here, we read how she chooses her mate, loses him and then goes against her own values to have a child. it's the ultimate rebellion from the conventional ways and undermines the very conception of hindu family values as understood by the traditional Indians, and hence creates a conflict of conventional and modern ways and starts the debate of whether second and third generation immigrants will ever completely follow their own cultures as set forth by their parents.
5. The Gold-Legged Frog by Khamsing Srinawk

Passage: "You sure are lucky,' the words raised…...

CI realized a finalizing image stories ( authors) interrelate ( final image ) works focus . You asked interrelate works referred syllabus-based reading: glancing references materials authors assigned reading syllabus; reference works author: short stories, plays, poetry, essays, graphic stories, comicstrips, photographs, moving pictures (created authors photojournalists, movie directors final phase respective, correlatable, works art).
The purpose of the present paper is to discuss the themes presented in two short stories, namely "A good man is hard to find" by Flannery O'Connor and in "Hands" by Sherwood Anderson. In order to have a better understanding of the concepts which these authors deal with we will also be referring to other short stories written by each of them. The social standards almost crush the individuals' true identity. There is a lack of real communication in people's lives. The divine manifests itself even in the grotesque. The tragic destiny of the characters…...

mla

Bibliography:

Anderson, S. The egg and other stories, CreateSpace, 2009

Asals, F. Flanery Rows, Novel: a forum on fiction, vol.4, no.1, 1971, pp.92-96

Friedman, M., T., Bya nd about Flannery O'Connor, Journal of Modern Literature, vol.1, no.2 (1970-1971), pp.288-292

Friedman, M.T.Review: Flannery O'Connor: the canon completed, the commentary continuing. The Souhern literary Jornal, vol. 5, no. 2, 1973, pp.116-123

Cars and driving are emblems of American culture, and have defined American lifestyle and identity. American cities are built around the car, and so is the urban and suburban sprawl. It is no small coincidence, therefore, that both Flannery O'Connor and Dagoberto Gilb use a car as a central symbol in their short stories. In O'Connor's "A Good Man is Hard to Find," a road trip turns deadly when the family runs into a group of escaped convicts on their way to Florida. Florida makes a brief appearance in Gilb's short story, "Love in L.A.," too, as protagonist Jake mistakes Mariana's heritage for being Cuban since her license plates are from Florida. Like "A Good Man is Hard to Find," "Love in L.A." centers around cars and driving as the central motifs, but in Gilb's story, the ending is not gruesome. Although "Love in L.A." And "A Good Man is…...

mla

Works Cited

Gilb, Dagoberto. "Love in L.A."

O'Connor, Flannery. "A Good Man is Hard to Find." Retrieved online: http://pegasus.cc.ucf.edu/~surette/goodman.html

Frailty of the Human Psyche Explored by Flannery O'Connor
Flannery O'Connor's stories remain popular because she creates colorful characters that help her drive her points home. In many ways, O'Connor delivers readers a different reality, which allows them to look upon characters in a different way, thus forcing them to look at humanity in a different way as well. In "A Good Man is Hard to Find" and "Everything that Rises Must Converge," O'Connor presents extreme realities with extraordinary characters. Grandma, The Misfit, Julian and his mother appear to be one kind of person but in truth, they are different from these facades. They believe they are one way but readers see them as something else. The reader in these cases is the silent observer and O'Connor uses this situation well because this is how we are in many situations in everyday life. e simply watch others as they interact and…...

mla

Works Cited

O'Connor, Flannery. "A Good Man is Hard to Find." Literature: An Introduction to Fiction,

Poetry, and Drama. X.J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia, eds. New York: Longman. 1999.

Print.

-. "Everything that Rises Must Converge." The Norton Anthology of Short Fiction. New York:

Southern Stories Revelation of the Intrigues of Classism and Racism
The two stories, William Faulkner's A Rose for Emily and Flannery O'Connor's A Good Man is hard to find are southern literature. Southern literature share common elements such as family focus, racial issues, classism and justice among others. Faulkner is one frequently mentioned writer especially in relation to the Renaissance movement during the 1930s. A Nobel Prize winner he is a significant figure in the history of the south. Faulkner witnessed the challenges that the South faced during his time and more so the discrimination against the African-Americans and the reluctance of the political establishment to embrace change. As much as he was not vocal on these issues, he used perspectivism as a tool against these issues and to point at the erosion of the southern hospitality that gave the family and community priority over the individual. He is bold in…...

Crime and Punishment
Ours is an extremely violent kind of world where even the most common type of folk can find themselves faced with types of unspeakable horrors and criminal activity through little or no intention of their own. In American literature, a common theme is the concept of the freedom of choice and how a person's choices come to affect not only themselves, but all of the people around them. Some of the choices that people, and their literary counterparts, make lead them to crime. It is the purpose of the American justice system to ensure that crimes are punished. However, in literature, that is not always the case. Crime in the American judicial sense is activity which violates the laws of the United States of America. In literature, these are not always the crimes that the authors feel deserve punishment. Three specific stories which deal with crime and punishment…...

mla

Works Cited:

Andrews, William L., Frances Smith. Foster, and Trudier Harris. The Concise Oxford

Companion to African-American Literature. New York: Oxford UP, 2001. Print.

Baldwin, James. "Sonny's Blues." 1957. Print.

Bandy, Stephen C. "One of my Babies: The Misfit and the Grandmother." 2011. Print.

I. Introduction
A. Attention-Grabbing Opening Sentence
B. Background Information on "A Good Man is Hard to Find"
C. Thesis Statement

II. Overview and Analysis of Characters
A. The Grandmother
1. Personality Traits and Motivations
2. Significance to the Storyline
B. The Misfit
1. Personality Traits and Motivations
2. Significance to the Storyline
C. Supporting Characters
1. Bailey (Grandmother's son)
2. The Children (John Wesley and June Star)
3. The Mother
4. Red Sammy Butts

III. Plot Summary
A. Exposition
1. Introduction of Characters
2. Grandmother's Manipulations
B. Rising Action
1. Road Trip Details
2. Encounter with the Misfit
C. Climax
1. The....