A Good Man is Hard to Find

“A Good Man Is Hard to Find” is a story in the Southern Gothic tradition, a genre that Flannery O’Connor used in most of her writing. This genre is characterized by grotesque characters and settings, disturbing or highly unusual events, and often dark humor. It is also always deeply rooted in the post-Civil War American South and grew out of the contradictions of Southern society.

For example, traditionally the South is thought of as an idyllic, green landscape where the people have Old World manners and beliefs. Christianity is also deeply engrained in Southern society. What matters most are appearance and propriety. However, the South was built on a legacy of slavery, genocide, patriarchy, and violence. These dark, disturbing aspects of society are often repressed by the people living there. Flannery O’Connor, a native of Georgia, grew up experiencing this contradictory culture and thus explores these contradictions and hypocrisies through her use of the Southern Gothic style. However, she roots her stories in true, believable characters, thus preventing her writing from becoming comical or fully Gothic in the traditional sense.

Specifically, in “A Good Man Is Hard to Find,” the plot and world are a heightened, off-kilter version of reality. It is highly unlikely that a family would read about an escaped criminal only to later that day be murdered by the same man after a series of unfortunate events. However, it is also not so farfetched as to be fantasy. Similarly, the characters are simplistic but not so much so that they become parodies or stereotypes. This fine balance is characteristic of the Southern Gothic style and of O’Connor’s work in particular.

The story also peels back the layers of Southern society to reveal those grotesque, sometimes hauntingly dark truths of the culture. The grandmother, who considers herself a proper Southern lady, is also deeply racist and nostalgic for a time when slavery and violence defined the region. She constantly refers to the past as a better time, when people were good, and you could trust anyone. The moral decay she sees in the world contrasts with her own perceived inner virtuousness.

The idea of “goodness” is central to the story, which is why the word is included in the title. In the Southern Gothic tradition, O’Connor dissects the façade of goodness in the South, primarily through the character of the grandmother. She holds herself to be righteous and is quick to call out good men, such as Red Sammy. However, her notion of what makes a good man is self-centered and, in many ways, egotistical. For her, “good men” share her beliefs, prejudices, and social standing. There is also a classist element to her definition, as she tells The Misfit that “You've got good blood! I know you wouldn't shoot a lady! I know you come from nice people!” (Paragraph 130).

The grandmother clearly conflates her idea of goodness with having a strong moral code, when in reality hers is based on an arbitrary idea of good and evil. Through her interactions with The Misfit, her sense of goodness, then, is revealed to be false, weak, and hypocritical. By contrast, the Misfit has a very strong moral code that prioritizes: “No pleasure but meanness” (Paragraph 133). Although this is obviously not a “good” code, he nevertheless sticks to it consistently and explains his reasoning to the grandmother logically.

Ultimately, neither The Misfit nor the grandmother are good people; the difference is that The Misfit knows he is not good while the grandmother believes she is a good person. This façade of goodness is, in O’Connor’s world, a more insidious evil than the barefaced, unapologetic evil of The Misfit. It is also an evil very much rooted in the reality of the Southern culture O’Connor lived in. The grandmother is a highly believable character who prioritizes appearance above all. She wants to be seen to be as a lady so much that it seems not to occur to her to question whether she truly is one.

In contrast to the grandmother, The Misfit is a character who seems heightened and not quite of this world. His conversation with the grandmother strays into a discussion of philosophy and morality in a way, it is suggested, that very few conversations take place in the world of the story. His dialogue makes it appear as if he is burdened with some sublime yet cryptic knowledge that the grandmother cannot understand. For example, in discussing Jesus, he says several times: “Jesus was the only One that ever raised the dead […] and He shouldn't have done it. He thrown everything off balance” (Paragraph 133). This statement seems to suggest that, before Jesus, morality was better defined; after Jesus, religion gave people something to hide behind to claim goodness.

This is not something the grandmother grasps; throughout their conversation, she becomes increasingly frightened and tries different methods of appealing to the Misfit to spare her life. When she fails to move him by calling him a good man from good blood, she offers him money, for example. Later, in telling him to pray for forgiveness, “she found herself saying, ‘Jesus. Jesus,’ meaning, Jesus will help you, but the way she was saying it, it sounded as if she might be cursing” (Paragraph 127). This passage suggests that the grandmother might even have gone so far as to renounce Jesus to save her own life.

The discussion of morality ends with the grandmother seemingly coming to a divine revelation when she tells The Misfit, “Why you're one of my babies. You're one of my own children!” and reaches out for him (Paragraph 135). It is an act of pure selflessness and grace, as if the grandmother has finally achieved goodness. Thus, after she dies, she is described as lying, looking at the clear sky with a smile on her face. The Misfit even confirms this shift to goodness, telling his associates, “She would of been a good woman […] if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life” (Paragraph 139).

The ending of the story, however, remains ambiguous and open to interpretation. In one sense, the grandmother achieved goodness before her death, but on the other hand, The Misfit seems to have gotten away with his crimes unpunished. Worse still, the entire family was killed, including innocent characters like the baby.

Still, this ending is consistent with the Southern Gothic genre. It is dark, grotesque, and the opposite of uplifting. The family does not drive off through plantation fields to live happily ever after. Instead, the harsh realities of evil and death have caught up with them. In dissecting the culture in which she lived, O’Connor shows that reality is dark, encounters may happen for no true reason, and a good man—or woman—is truly hard to find.