A Good Man is Hard to Find by Flannery O'Conner

Does the plot suprise you? Why or why not? When you started reading the story, what did you think would happen? If you have seen any films by the Coen brothers ( especially No Country For Old Men), can you see how they were influenced by Flannery O'Conner?

The plot of this story definitely suprised me because at first glace I expected it to be some kind of love story. I expected it to be a cliche story about a woman searching for her "perfect man". However, the story shocked me with its sort of morbid tone and theme of morality. The plot's exposition begins with the family leaving for Florida against the grandmother's will. The grandmother, whose name is never revealed, would much rather go to Tennesee not only to visit some friends, but to also avoid the Misfit that has escaped and is on his way to Florida also. Meanwhile the grandmother is so caught up in her idea of being "a lady"(357) that she feels obligated to throw her morals upon everyone around her. Since she is a lady, she seems to believe that she is in a sense above everyone else around her. She spends most of her time telling people how others should be and act, essentially judging her surroundings. The grandchildren of the protagonist are essential in the story because they help show how the grandmother is always trying to shove her ladylike morals upon them. The granddaughter, June Star, upsets the protagonist by calling Red Sam's tower a "broken down place" that she "wouldn't live in" (359) since she was being too blunt and rude. It is quite ironic how the grandmother spends so much time pointing fingers at everyone else around her for their faults while she never stops to evaluate her own actions. For example, she proves that she is deceitful and egocentric by sneeking her cat Pitty Sing into the car knowing that her son would not be approving of the idea, and also lies about the secret panel. Towards the end however, thanks to the encounter with the Misfit, the grandmother stops focusing on judging other people and begins to realize that she isn't as perfect as she thinks she is.

While reading the story I honestly couldn't tell what was going to happen next. At first I thought that after their first stop at the tower the rest of the story was going to have at least three to four other pit stops. At each pit stop I predicted that the grandmother would run into other men that essentially fit her definition of a good man, each being better than the first. I never apprehended that the house she reminisced about was "not in Georgia but in Tennessee"(362). It didn't suprise me that she never mentioned the truth about the house to her family. This also helped illustrate her egocentric personality since she was only thinking of how things would benefit her instead of putting her family first.

Overall, I really like the writing style of this author. Suprisingly I enjoyed the gloominess and morbidity of the text. The fact that she had June Star be dissapointed about "nobody [being] killed" (362) in the accident just blew my mind. Never in a million years would I imagine a little girl saying that about her family in a story. Her writing is humorous to me since you never know what the characters are going to say next. I thought it was really funny that the grandmother but on such a feminine outfit so that "in case of an accident, anyone seeing her dead on the highway would know that she was a lady"(357). Flannery O'Conner's story really kept me on my toes. I actually do want to find some of her other works.