How many people do you meet each twenty-four hours whom considers themselves to be a righteous individual? Do you hold or differ with this individuals opinion of their ain character? Often a individual might conceal behind his or her faith as a justification for the actions made in every twenty-four hours life. Possibly some people may make up one’s mind that perpetrating plenty positive actions can some how naturals out their negative actions. leting them to see themselves a righteous individual. In Flannery O’Connors narrative “A Good Man Is Difficult To Find” . the writer challenges her readers to see what it genuinely means to be a “good man” and why these qualities are so difficult to happen in a individual.
As the narrative opens we are introduced to a grandma who is holding an external struggle with her household over the holiday location they have chosen. The grandmother thinks really extremely of herself and her determinations. so she begins to seek and pull strings her household into holding with her on traveling to a different topographic point. The writer intimations to us that the grandmother thinks extremely of herself by the manner that she descibes her vesture to the reader. She picks out her vesture based upon her ideas that “In instance of an accident. anyone seeing her dead on the main road would cognize at one time that she was a lady. ” ( Paragraph 12 ) The reader can merely inquire why such a ego righteous adult female could be so focussed on the sentiments of others even in her ideas of hereafter. The grandma besides selfishly brings along her cat in secretiveness. despite the fact that her boy Bailey “didn’t like to get at a motel with a cat” . ( Paragraph 10 ) She puts herself to such importance that she does non believe that she needs to listen to her boies petitions. but instead do what she wants to.
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She scolds the kids about the manner they act in the auto and claims that she herself would non move in that mode. which besides signifies the fact that she thinks of herself as a righteous individual. Immediately after call on the carpeting the childs for their actions. the grandma points out a kid to the household with the words “Oh expression at the cunning small pickaninny” ( Paragraph 18 ) which tells the reader that she is depicting the kid by his or her skin colour. She even uses the kids skin colour to go through a opinion that as a “little nigger” he likely did non have any britches. ( Paragraph 19-20 ) The writer uses this as more grounds to the reader that the grandmother thinks of herself as superior to others. merely by her tegument colour. She continues throughout the narrative to try to pull strings her household with narratives of a immense house that she wanted to travel back and visit. The more she tells of the house. the more fired up the kids become about traveling to it and they begin to do a dither to their parents. The grandma is pleased with this and continues to feed the fire she has built in the kids. despite the fact that she knows it is doing hurt to her boy. The aged adult female even offers up little suggestions saying that the trip to the house would be really “educational for them” ( Paragraph 53 ) in an effort to state anything so that she can to acquire her ain manner.
After she has eventually got her manner. the grandma eventually realizes that she was so caught up in what she wanted that she had non right remembered the location of the house. At the realisation that person like her has made a error. she becomes abashed and her pess jump up. This is when we see another one of her selfish actions come back to stalk her. since the cat becomes startled and causes the grandmas son Bailey to lose control of the auto. Through her atrocious actions. the grandma has caused her household to bust up their auto and set them all in danger but yet she has no compunction to apologise for her errors. The reader Bailey’s wrath would non come down on her all at once” . ( Paragraph 67 ) Even with all of the problem she has caused the aged adult female is so concerned with the belief that she is a good individual that she uses it as a justification for her errors.
It is non until the household is faced with a felon who calls himself “The Misfit” that the truth behind the grandma truly comes to the surface. The grandma instantly recognizes him and ignorantly calls him out on his individuality. which puts her household into more danger than earlier. Her boy Bailey is so angry with his female parent at this point that he “says something to his female parent that shocked even the children” ( Paragraph 85 ) and it becomes even more apparent that the adult female has been provocing angry feelings from her household for some clip now. Even the kids have made comments towards the adult female throughout the narrative. which is a lay waste toing blow when even your ain household has negative feelings towards you. Throughout all of the responses from her household. the grandma still continues to move in her usual selfish ways.
Once she is faced up against The Misfit. the grandma begins seeking to pull strings him merely as she has done to her household. She tries to carry him into swearing that she believes him to be a “good adult male at heart” . ( Paragraph 91 ) At this point the grandma has ever been able to pull strings those around her. but The Misfit proves to be non so easy fooled by her. The grandma even begins to seek and utilize her faith as a manner to carry The Misfit into allowing her spell. The aged adult female makes the comment to him that “If you would pray… Jesus would assist you” ( Paragraph 119 ) . but The Misfit can easy see through what the grandma pretends to be. The grandma has ever believed herself to be a righteous individual. but she has non proven herself to be one through her actions. She has non mentioned the Lord until she is faced with a circumstance of certain despair and this is obvious to The Misfit. He has ne’er claimed to be a god-fearing individual but it is shown in his negotiations of Jesus with the adult female that he has thought long and difficult about faith. There is a gleam of hope in the ideas of The Misfit that allow the reader to believe that. in the slightest minute. he could really be a good individual if given the right counsel. The Misfit seems as though Hes sing faith at one point. but the grandma pulls him off from it more with her insencerity. She goes from talking to him about trusting on Jesus and begins offering him money in exchange for her life. which is something that crushes all possible visions of her being a genuinely faithful adult female.
Though he can see her for who she is. the ideas of faith can still be seen resiling about in his caput a spot and this becomes apparent to her grandma every bit good. She sees that there is a possibility of a good individual in the adult male who she described before as a “criminal” whom she would non take her kids in the way of. ( Paragraph 1 ) This makes the grandma unfastened her eyes to her ain life and she begins to recognize that she doesn’t have to be the selfish individual she has been. but her realisation comes far excessively late. In the line “She would of been a good adult female if it had been person at that place to hit her every minute of her life” ( Paragraph 141 ) we see that The Misfit saw the difference in her in her last minutes. but that these last minutes could ne’er cover up the grounds of who she had ever been earlier.
The grandma exhausted manner excessively much clip in her life concentrating on what a good individual she was. instead than reflecting on the actions she took. The sarcasm of the narrative is that there is more good seen in the sincerety of The Misfit. instead than in the grandma who thought so extremely of herself. Any individual can claim to be a righteous individual and manipulate those around them into believing this to be true. Although in the terminal. it all comes down to the evaulation of the actions that a individual makes as to whether or non they can genuinely be classified as a good individual. It is apparent by the terminal of the narrative that a “good man” is difficult to happen merely because so many people are traveling around claiming to be one themselves.
