Question
Reflection Questions
Read
"A Good Man Is Hard to Find" by Flannery O'Connor, p. 498 (p. 516)
and then answer three of the following five questions: What values or worldview
does the grandmother represent in “A Good Man Is Hard to Find”? How,
specifically, do her own words and those of the narrator contribute to our
understanding of her character? What stance does the story encourage us to take
in regard to the grandmother? How or why might the grandmother be one of the
people O’Connor describes in “The Fiction Writer and His Country” as having
“little—or at best a distorted—sense of spiritual purpose”? The grandmother is
associated with the past from the beginning of “A Good Man.” What was the past
like, according to the grandmother and Red Sammy? How was it different
from, and better than, the present? How does the encounter with the Misfit
change the grandmother and/or our view of her? In what way might we see the
encounter with the Misfit as, in O’Connor’s own words, “returning” the
grandmother “to reality and preparing [her] to accept [her] moment of grace”
(“On Her Own Work”)? How does O’Connor characterize the
Misfit? What is the significance of the grandmother’s recognizing or mistaking
the Misfit for “one of [her] own children” right before she dies? What does the
Misfit mean when he says the grandmother “would of been a good woman . . . if
it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life”? During their
brief encounter, both the Misfit and the grandmother talk about religion and
morality. What does the story ultimately say about either or both of these
issues? To what extent and how, specifically, might “A Good Man” embody
O’Connor’s belief, expressed in “The Fiction Writer and His Country,” that “the
meaning of life is centered in our Redemption by Christ”? that, as O’Connor
says in “The Grotesque in Southern Fiction,” “life is and will remain
essentially mysterious”? From its title right through to the Misfit’s comments
about the dead grandmother, this story clearly explores the question of what it
means to be a “good” man or woman, contrasting at least two different
definitions of “good.” What are those definitions? What, if
any, definition, does the story ultimately embrace?
Expert Solution
Question 1; The grandmother
presents traditional values that are embedded in their upbringing. For instance,
this character tells their grand children that during their era, children had a
higher level of respect for their parents, native origins, and everything else
when the grandchildren were making fun of various states in the South (O'Connor, 1953). Therefore, her
worldview is based on the traditional values that were predominant and
extensively taught during her childhood that the current generation, especially
her grandchildren, are disregarding. Additionally, while at the Red Sammy
restaurant, the grandmother conversed with the owner about better times and
supported the notion that Europe was the primary cause of the problem (O'Connor, 1953), highlighting
their biased worldview of power and superiority. Therefore, the grandmother
upheld traditional values and a biased worldview.
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