The theme of a good man is hard to find EssayIn” A Good Man is Hard to Find” there are many factors that can be the theme. The theme can be about a family as a whole that lacks love for the grandmother, or about a family that goes on a trip that wound up having an accident, which puts them at the wrong place at the wrong time. Both of these themes are obvious to any reader, but it does not quite seem to match this author’s depth style way of writing. In a brief write up on Flannery O’Connor, it says “O’Connor is a moralist, she focuses an uncompromising moral eye on the violence and spiritual disorder of the world.
” By knowing this about the author O’Connor we can look deeper into this story and find morals of two characters as the theme. The two characters are the Grandmother and the Misfit. Even though they are both different as night and day, they both have morals and stands by their morals no matter what. Even though the Grandmother shows to be a victim of rudeness, hostile statements, and dangerous situations, she still stood by her morals regardless of the situations. In the first paragraph, the grandmother is a victim of her grandchildren and at the end, she is a victim of a murderer who ironically is much nicer to her than her own grandchildren! It is easily observed that the grandmother’s morals involve making her environment as pleasant as her personality.
At the beginning, you can see how the grandchildren are making hostile comments towards the grandmother about going on the trip with them. As she sits in the back seat with the hostile children instead of allowing them to ruin her mood, she decides to point out the ” interesting details of the scenery- stone mountain’s; the blue granite, the brilliant red clay banks slightly streaked with purple”. (pg 199). At the end while a victim of a murderer the grandmother still tried to make some good out of the situation.
“Ain’t a cloud in the sky” he remarked. “Yes it is a beautiful day” said the grandmother. “Listen you shouldn’t call yourself misfit because I know you’re a good man at heart. I can just look at you and tell. ” The grandmother said (pg 205).
As stated earlier the grandmother was dedicated to keeping her moral of making her environment as pleasant as her personality!Although the Misfit is a “murderer”, he also has morals. The Misfit’s morals can easily be described with two words “bitter and sweet”. The sweet part of his morals is on page 205. “Good Afternoon”, he said, “I see you all had a little spill”Baily turned and said something to the Grandmother The Misfit face reddened. “Lady don’t you get upset. Sometimes a man says things he don’t mean, don’t reckon he meant to talk to you that away.
” the misfit said. “You wouldn’t shoot a lady, would you?” the grandmother said ” I would hate to have to he said”. The bitterness part of the misfit’s morals is shown on the last page. “The Misfit sprang back as if a snake had bitten him and shot her three times in the chest” (208). In this particular quote the misfit wasAlthough the misfit and the grandmother are very much different in their morals, they are the only two characters that has morals and sticks by them no matter the situation.
One has morals of turning everything into positive and the others morals are being nice and calm as he could while doing his evil works. As a reader I personally believe that O’Connor did a very good job showing that not only good positive people have morals in life, but so do those who are considered criminals. .
