Flannery O Conner

Flannery O'Connor was born in Savannah Georgia, on March 25, 1925. In her works she portrays the southern character and atmosphere. Her obsession with the grotesque is revealed in the dark and morbid plots of her stories. In the short story "A Good Man is Hard to Find," she uses Christianity as a fundamental thesis. The search for the meaning of the Christian faith in the story is based on her view that modern society was changing for the worst. O'Connor views the lifestyles of the elite Southern people to be a front. This story focuses on Christianity being filled with sin and punishment, good and evil, belief and unbelief. The grandmother fully tells her opinion as she tries to convince the Misfit that he is a good Christian man before he kills her.

The grandmother is representative of Christianity which O'Connor apparently believed to be more hypocritical than prevalent in the traditional Old South, "the grandmother had on a navy blue straw sailor hat with a bunch of white violets on the brim and a navy blue dress with a small white dot in the print. Her collar and cuffs were white organdy trimmed with lace, and at her neckline, she pinned a purple spray of cloth violets containing a sachet. In case of an accident, anyone seeing her dead on the highway would know at once that she was a lady"(138). In this reading, the prominence is on purity and southern Christianity as if she is getting ready to attend church. The grandmother displays the proper image of a southern Christian woman in the presence of other people. Her clothing, her perfection, and her attitude are perceived as truly religious. In reality, the grandmother is exceptionally selfish. She preaches and gives sermons throughout the story yet in the face of danger she thinks only of herself. The grandmother uses gender roles, "you wouldn't shoot a lady would you," (147) and religious images to try to save herself. She preaches and prays to the Misfit as if he is Jesus, "JesusÐ'...you've got good blood, Jesus you ought not to shoot a lady" (151,152) she radiates an aura of holiness at the same time sounding self-serving.

The Misfit symbolizes evil. At one point, the Misfit likens himself to Christ, stressing the fact that they were punished for crimes they did not commit. Christ accepted death for the sins of all people. In contrast, the Misfit did not accept reprimand and killed many innocent people instead. "yes'm: the Misfit said as if he agreed.