A Good Man Is Hard To Find: Misunderstood

Words: 851
Pages: 4

In Flannery O’Connor’s “The Lame Shall Enter First” and “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” the main characters are negligent to their surroundings and the issues they are having. In “The Lame Shall Enter First,” a neglected child named Rufus goes to live with his social worker, Shepard. Shepard takes him under his wing and treats him better than his own son. In “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” a dysfunctional family decides to go on vacation to Florida. The grandma does not like this idea since she would rather go to Tennessee and knows there is a killer on the loose that is headed towards Florida. Characters in both are misunderstood and disrespectful which eventually leads to death for some. In both stories, characters are misunderstood which leads to problems that may otherwise not have existed. Shepard’s son Norman in “The Lame Shall Enter First,” is misunderstood by Shepard. Shepard believes he is selfish and unworthy of everything that he …show more content…
In “The Lame Shall Enter First,” Rufus harshly disrespects his caretaker, Shepard. Even though Shepard is giving him a place to stay, food, and many non-necessities, Rufus shows no appreciation and torments him every chance he gets. When Rufus and Norton are discussing Shepard, Rufus claims, “He don’t know his left hand from his right” (O’Connor 341). While Shepard is so involved in trying to please Rufus, he almost completely forgets about his own son who had been the one to stand up for him. In “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” the children disrespect their elders, strangers, and even their home state. John Wesley complains, “Tennessee is just a hillbilly dumping ground… and Georgia is a lousy state too” (O’Connor 325). The children, along with their parents, disrespect the grandma as well. They ignore her claim that taking a trip to Florida would be unsafe and go anyways. If they would have paid better attention to the grandma they could have avoided this huge