Hypocrisy In A Good Man Is Hard To Find By Flannery O' Connor
Hypocrisy is the disease of this era. Most people wear the masks of love, purity, and goodness, yet from inside they hide the complete opposite feelings, hatred, selfishness, and dishonesty. In the '' A good Man is Hard to Find '' this reality can clearly seen through the main character's behavior, the grandmother, who in the beginning of the story pretended to be curious about the life of her grandchildren,whereas, she herself, in the end of the story, begged The Misfit to keep her alive though all members of her family were killed. The thing that I like most about this story and appealed me to choose it is that it reflects the reality of this present life. Perhaps in this story the writer is trying to indicate that a good man is not hard to find but to distinguish.
The general scene of the story is set in the Southern rural region of the United States. The family's house, where Bailey's family and his mother used to live in Atlanta, was the starting point of the incidents of the story. Thereafter, they headed towards the destination of their journey, Florida, using the car as a transportation device. Along the way, they could enjoy themselves watching some beautiful spectacles out of the window like, for example.'' look at the graveyard, the grandmother said.'' (O' Connor,p3,1953) The scene of the graveyard could be considered as a foreshadowing to indicate to death, which the members of the family will face in the end of the story, since the number of the graves,six, was equal to the number of the family. In their way, they stopped at The Tower for barbecued sandwiches, run by a man called Red Sammu Butt, where they could take a break and had their lunch.
The ditch, where the family had an accident and their car broke down, was the place in which the climax of the story began.
Some phasical objects were mentioned by the author to help him convey some significant messages to the reader's mind. The most important ones are the cars .The first one is the family's car which may symbolize to the journey of life which each one of us goes through, and always ends with death like what happened with the family. The second one is The Misfit' car which could creat irony. When the family were stuck in the ditch , they were terriffied to death, however, when they saw The Misfit' car they thought that it was the saviour,and they started to wave to it, whereas, it was the danger itself.
Concerning the time of the story, the epoch of the story was never explicitly clarified. However, some hints were mentioned in the story which could help us deduce it. One of these hints is, for example, using the car as a transportation device at that time. Another one is that the grandmother mentioned the novel Gone with the Wind, “published as a book in 1936 and released as a movie in 1939. Since O' Conner wrote this story in 1953, it could be assumed from these two hints that the story could take place in the late 40' s or early 50' s” (Shampoo Editorial Team, 2008). If we have a quick glance at this sentence, ''They drove again into the hot afternoon'' (O' Connor,p5,1953) Describing the afternoon as being hot, we can infer that the story took place in summer.
To elaborate more about the time of the story, “the story lasted for more than one day, and the family's journey began in the morning. ''The next morning the grandmother was the first one in the car'' (O' Connor,p1,1953) However, it was not known for us at what time of the day the family had the accident and got stuck in the ditch where the climax of the story began.” (Shampoo Editorial Team,2008)
Moving to the third element of the setting, the social environment of the characters, both the protagonist, the grandmother, and the antagonist, The Misfit, have religious backgrounds. The grandmother uses references to religion when she interacts with her family's members even with the Misfit. ''pray, pray '' On the contrary, Misfit could be seen as the representative of anti christ.In addition, the grandmother's religious background helps us infer a side of her character as a hypocritical woman. She requests The Misfit to pray, whereas, she herself does not believe in that '' ''Jesus. Jesus,'' meaning, Jesus will help you, but the way she was saying it , it sounded as if she might be cursing.'' ( O' Connor,p11,1953)
“ The story began in the feeling and sense of foreboding , whereas, in the middle of the story the feelings of horror, worry and panic were overwhelmed. An example of the sense of fear, when the family met with The Misfit and his men, they all became scared and terrified to death to extent that Bailey, the grandmother's son, could not stand on his feet when he was asked to accompany The Misfit's men, Bobby Lee and Hiram, towards the woods. The expressions of his face reflected his deep feelings of fear and horror which he had.''His eyes were as blue and intense as the parrots in his shirt and he remained perfectly still.''(O' Connor,p9,1953)
Moreover, the effects of the setting on other elements of fiction such as ,metaphor, and simile, were clear. For example, ''They passed a large cotton field with five or six graves fenced in the middle of it, like a small island'' this is a simile where the writer resembles the five or six graves with an island and the large cotton field with sea. Another example which could be seen as both metaphor and simile is ''Behind them the line of woods gaped like a dark open mouth'' The writer here resembles the forest with a creature who opens its mouth widely and hungrily ready to eat anything to indicate that all members of the family will be later on killed and buried in the forest. One more instance of metaphor is ''The shirt came flying at him and landed on his shoulder and put it on.'' The writer gives the shirt, which does not have a soul to move, a quality of a bird who could fly to show a side of The Misfit's character as being merciless. Though he kills a man, still he pretends that he has a sense of humor.
