Background-”A Good Man is Hard to Find” Flannery O’Connor

O’Connor’s fiction grapples with living a spiritual life in a secular world, taking a broad approach to spiritual issues by providing moral, social, and psychological context. Through her stories , which are often tragic, exaggerated, and at times quite shocking, O’Connor forces her readers to confront such human faults as hypocrisy, insensitivity, self-centeredness, and prejudice.

As well, in her fiction, she clearly feels a strong kinship with those who are outcast or suffering. Many of her characters are social outcasts who are physically or mentally challenged. Although she portrays these characters in an unsentimental way, there is an underlying sense of sympathy concerning their pain and suffering, which strongly reflects both her own physical problems and strong Catholic faith.

Gothic elements In Gothic literature, evil is acknowledged as a real force in the world, and characters are assumed to have a dark side that lures them into violent and weird acts. O’Connor uses these elements to help expose the gap she saw between some people’s professed religious beliefs and their morally irresponsible behavior.

A key element in Gothic literature is the grotesque character, one who has become bizarre, usually through some type of obsession. A grotesque character may be obsessed with an idea, a value, or an assumption. Typically, grotesque characters are one-dimensional and possess one or more exaggerated personality traits. Many times, these characters are being used to communicate a universal message.

Group “ticket out the door” 1 . How would you characterize the Misfit? What is being suggested when he says, Jesus has “thrown everything off balance”? 2. In what sense could the grandmother have been a good woman if, as the Misfit says, there was “somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life”? 3. How is the interaction between the Misfit and the grandmother a “pivotal” moment for both character and thematic development? 4. What elements in the text suggest that the story may be viewed allegorically?