Flannery O'Connor "A Good Man is Hard to Find"

Grandma gets kids thinking in her way so she can control her son

John= name of creator of methodist church

why she doesnt stop the murder of her grandchildren

Being, merely, "a lady," that which has meant so much to her that it seems everything in her old age, is unlikely save her now—though since it is the bulk of what she knows, she is also unlikely to abandon.

________ is the essence of her being

being a lady

pickaninny

cotton picker very offensive word

"youre the misfit" she said "i recognized you at once"

grandma always wants to one up everyone.

Everyone in the south

int heir own world, has no idea whats going on, racist, nastalgia, living in the past

"oh look at the cute little pickaninny"

saying its cute... but suffering is sad! very offensive!

the misfit put the quiet in baileys family but not the grandmother

there are more things dishonest with the grandmother than the actual villian (the misfit)

Toomsboro

they are going to die

"behind them the line of woods gaped like a dark open mouth"

they wont meet their maker, they are going to die! no presence of god, sin happens

grandmother saying i know youre a good man

thinks she knows everything

Flannery O'Connor wrote the short story ____________

"A Good Man is Hard to Find"

"aint a cloud in the sky, he remarked looking up at it. dont see no sun but don't see no cloud neither"

(open boat) looks up to the sky and its not there, devine being in different, not there for them

Flannery O'Connor was catholic - writes in perspective of ______________ AND has a ________

-deeply religious principles -sense of humor

"in case of an accident, anyone seeing her dead on the highway would know at once that she was a lady"

-sin: PRIDE -VERY materialistic, narcasistic. proud women, self enveloped mentality.

theme about grandmother

-thinks shes the smartest, best person in the room. -has been lead to believe, without thinking about, or considering fully such beliefs which shows us grandmother is SHALLOW AND SUPERFICIAL

equates stealing somebody's tires to killing them.

He believe that even if he hadn't done anything "bad" he'd be punished just for being born into the unforgiving environment that bore him. (naturalism)

It's not for nothing that the MF wears glasses—and remember that he is described as having graying hair (life experience) and a "scholarly" kind of look. He's the killer-philosopher.

If he knew absolutely that we had a redeemer in Jesus then he knows he would turn his life around and follow him. But he doesn't have that kind of evidence, and without knowing for certain there is a Christ who sacrificed himself for us, and knowing somebody's always going to be "after him" anyway, he'll live his life the way he has been.

MF is a psychopathic serial killer, but for O'Connor he is the one who has some things to teach the GM first

She has taken everything for granted, including her Christian beliefs

"im sorry i dont have a shirt on before you ladies"

confirms that the misfit considers the grandmother what she thought was the essence of her being

"line of woods gaped like a dark open mouth"

dark woods of puritan days = a place where god's sun doesnt shine, where sin may be committed

the misfit's hard philosphy of crime "

done so many bad things he cant make sense of it hell is still hell, might as well do the worst things. no difference between steeling and killing

misfit thinks considers his words carefully before unlike the grandmother

has had lots of time to think about them (prison not rehab) "he answers that he isnt a good man"

"Jesus thown everything off balance"

he would require ocular evidence to know for a fact that Jesus came to earth as God's mortal-born son to die for our sins. Otherwise for him, the story of Jesus is just that, just another story people tell—and that people like the GM believe without ever thinking about it much.

"she would of been a good women" the misfit said, "if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life"

if you had a gun to your head all the time, youd be present and shaken out of dissolusion. - the misfit wakes everyone up and brings them into reality -o'cconor trying to shake sense into people of the world (nastalgia & racism)

"in my time, said the grandmother, "children were more respectful of their native states and their parents and everything else"

ironic! nostolgic about past "being more respectful" but then she goes and is SO disrespectful about the little black boy. she is very racist. *shows her past is meshed with racist thoughts

the misfit descends from a long line of those who havent done right & have been punished for it endlessly

naturalism

"Yes'm, somebody is always after you."

naturalistic

the sin of the grandmother is the same sin of eve=

pride

Story is about how

prison isnt rehab

Flannery o'conner is exploiting _____ & _______

racism & nostalgia of the world at this time (particularly the south)

shot under a "no clouds and no sun sky"

represents open boat idea of no present divine dignity

watermelon "june star didnt think it was any good"

represents the people of the south being in their own disillusioned world

just before her death, when she reaches out to the MF as "one of her babies," one of God's children

she finally makes the right gesture

"the horrible thought she had before the accidnet was that the house she had remembered so vividly was not in georgia but in tennessee"

shoes that everything is her fault. the whole story is propelled by her narcasism, dishonesty, dissolusion, shallow, superficial, racist, nastalgia, disrespect

"the grand mother didnt want to go to florida" (large state)

shows she is a disillusioned women