Hard To Find Grandmother

Words: 792
Pages: 4

Character Analysis of the Grandmother in “A Good Man is Hard to Find” “A Good Man is Hard to Find” by Flannery O’Conner is a story which begins one way, and due to the extreme character traits of one character, takes a tragic turn for the worse. One could certainly say the story is about a grandmother who leads the family of her son, Bailey, to tragic death by making her grandchildren believe that there is a secret panel in the mysterious house she lived a long time ago. Of course, the children ask their father to change his mind, and instead take them to the mysterious house before going to Florida for a vacation. Bailey gives in to his children’s demand, and begins the drive to the alleged house. On the drive, they have an accident before …show more content…
For instance, because she has old friends in Tennessee she plots an approach to ensure Bailey takes his family there and not to Florida. She also carries the cat against Bailey’s will which leads to the car accident. Another moment that portrays the grandmother as selfish, is when the Misfit and his gang show up with guns. When the rest of her family members are being executed in the woods, she refuses to believe that the Misfit is an immoral person as he look, and persistently insists that he must be “a good man at heart” (Flannery 21). She seems to fail to understand the dangers lying ahead, and that these are the last moments of her life. She tried to convince him that if he would pray, Jesus will help him. Selfishness here is clear as she does not care about the rest members of her family, but only herself, and she is determined to remain alive to the extent of praising the Misfit that he is a good person; even calling him her son despite knowing that he has killed Bailey and his family (Flannery 22).
In “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” a reader would certainly agree that O’Connor’ uses the grandmother’s character to reveal how dangerous her traits can be. Though the grandmother has no self-awareness, she still describes herself as a noblewoman, and in this case, she calls herself a lady. In the entire story the grandmother’s dishonesty, forgetfulness, and selfishness lead her family to death. It is the grandmother’s lack of self-awareness about her dangerous traits that leads to the death of her entire