Good and bad. Right and wrong. Guilty and Innocent. These are just a few of the many themes that surround everyone’s life. Everyone has their own opinion about certain issues, and they depend on their values, judgment, and beliefs to see them through their difficulties. Flannery O’Connor was quoted as saying "I see from the standpoint of Christian orthodoxy. This means the meaning of life is centered in our Redemption by Christ and that what I see in the world I see in relation to that" (Contemporary Authors 402). These themes are present in O’Connor’s story "A Good Man is Hard to Find." The story is about a grandmother, a "good" woman who goes on vacation with her son and his family and suffers terribly due to her poor judgement, and beliefs, but learns the true meaning of "good" in the face of something "bad."

The grandmother lives with her only son, Bailey, his wife and their children. The beginning of the story the grandmother is preparing to take a trip with her son’s family to Florida; a place where she doesn’t even want to go. She wants the whole family to go to Tennessee to visit relatives (O’Connor 907).This is the first example of the egocentric ways that lead her to her demise. She wants to uproot the whole family ,only for her benefit. She also does not want to go to Florida because there is a escaped convict, an evil man, on the loose. She says, "The Misfit is aloose from the Federal Pen and headed toward Florida and you read here what it says he did to those people" (O’Connor 907). Critic Richard Spivey explains the use of violence in O’Connor’s work: "O’Connor dealt with violent and grotesque people because "man has in his soul a powerful destructive element, which often makes him behave in a violent and grotesque manner. . . . Her writing is about the existential struggle with the principle of destruction traditionally called the Devil" (Contemporary Authors 403).

The day of the trip Grandma is the first packed and ready to go. She does not want to leave the cat because as she says, "he would miss her too much" (O’Connor 907). This comment would suggest that the grandmother thinks highly of herself and is believes she is the most important person in the family. While everyone else is in comfortable travel clothes, Grandma is dressed formally. She had on a "navy blue straw sailor hat with a bunch of white violets on the brim and a navy dress with a small white dot in the print" (O’Connor 907).

Both incidents are prime examples that show the grandmother’s behavior. We see that the grandmother is selfish and uncaring. She claims that she is a "good" person, yet she criticizes everyone and always wants to get her way. She hides the cat and lies about it to her son; she did not consider how anyone would feel about her bringing the cat. Yet, on the other hand she is very concerned with social opinion. She is dressed nicely, her excuse is that "in case of an accident anyone seeing her dead on the highway would know that she was a lady" (O’Connor 907). This shows that the grandmother was very concerned with people’s opinion. She acted proper, had strong virtues, values; a good woman in her view. But she was a self- centered person who judged others harshly, so that she would look good. She felt that the Misfit was a "bad" person who did horrible things and was going to suffer because of the decisions he had made in his life. Here, again we see the paradox of good and bad. Literary critic Abigail Ann Hamblen discuses this theme. "We see it to be a confrontation of the Christian with the non-believer. They (the family) are constrained to be "good" because they believe Jesse’s words, and the Misfit, a doubter, is free to be bad" (Hamblen 295).

Everything changes when the family gets in an accident. She doesn’t worry for the other family members. She tries to act hurt because she knows that her son is upset with her because she is the one who caused the accident She tries to divert attention to herself by saying that "I believe I have injured an organ (O’Connor 913). A good person would try to offer assistance, but the only thing that concerned the grandmother was once again, herself.

Problems are also evident when some men come to their aid and she recognizes the Misfit. Here is where Good and Evil meet. The forest that surrounded them a few hours before was "full of silver- white sunlight, now is "tall, dark and deep" (O’Connor 912,913). This suggests that the "bad" criminal has finally met the "good" grandmother. She quickly points out to him that he "wouldn’t shoot a lady" (O’Connor 913). She casts aside the family’s safety to benefit hers. She tries to convince the Misfit that he is in the same category of people with her. "You don’t look a bit like you have common blood" (O’Connor 913). The grandmother tries to convince the convict that he isn’t just anyone, but a "good man," something she does not believe but tries to get the misfit to believe so that her life can be spared.

As the tension rises the grandmother turns to religion to guide her during this ordeal. She asks the Misfit if he has ever prayed, hoping that by mentioning God he will not kill her. Critic Martha Stephens explains the Misfit’s point of view, "We learn that the center of the Misfit’s life has always been Jesus Christ, and what we see by the final scenes is that the Misfit has, the distinction of having at least faced up to the problem of Christian belief. And everything he has done proceeds from the inability to accept Christ, to truly believe" (Stephens 205). Quotes from T.S. Elliot’s essay on Baudelaire also tie into the theme of this story. Elliot states "so far as we are human, what we must do must either evil or good; so far as we do evil or good, we are human; and it is better, in a paradoxical way, to do evil than to do nothing; at least we exist. It is true that the glory of man is his capacity for salvation; it is true to say that his glory is his capacity for damnation" (Stephens 189). The Misfit has come to terms with the choices he has made concerning religion, and is facing the decision he made.

When the grandmother notices that her son and family have disappeared into the woods she quickly tries to manipulate the criminal’s mind by getting him to talk to her about his life. The Misfit believes that God is to blame for all the evil. "Jesus thrown everything off balance" (O’Connor 916).When the grandmother makes repeated attempts to get him to pray, he states that "I don’t want no he", "I’m doing all right by myself" (O’Connor 915). "He has met the issue head-on, though; unlike many people and unlike many of Miss O’Connor’s villains, he refuses to pretend the issue- and the choice- do not exist" (Drake 183).

Her repeated attempts at mentioning God suggest that she is trying to get the Misfit to look at his life. She believes that by mentioning God he will try to "save" himself and not commit anymore crimes. Another critic of O’Connor’s work H. Muller Gilbert wrote that the "Misfit is a memorable antagonist is an astute madman who deliberately places himself in opposition to Christ. The Misfit is cast into a hopeless situation because of the demonic aspects of the world, and his sense of alienation has intensified by his belief that God has abandoned him" (Gilbert 125). That is why the Misfit commits these crimes.

This is the first example of the grandmother’s apparent transformation. She no longer looked down on the Misfit, but saw him as an equal. It also suggests that by finding God it gave her a chance of cleansing the evil within her. She finally realized that in God’s world everyone was looked at the same, regardless of their imperfections. Drake observes that in O’ Connor’s view, "physical or mental deformity of the outward and visible sort always suggest inner, spiritual deformity. And when she compares man to the non- human, she is suggesting that his efforts to assert his own will , to provide his own "savior," make him into just that—non-human, sometimes even inhuman" (48). The Misfit has given up on everything, including God and feels that there is no purpose to his life, "no pleasure in life," "no pleasure but meaness" (O’Connor 916, 917).

It was at this point that she stated "why your one of my babies, your one of my own" (O’Connor 917). At this moment the grandmother’s true colors came out as she finally saw the error of her ways, she finally saw the "light" .At this instance the Misfit realized too, that he was also a person with feelings and was frightened by the grandmother’s influence on him, and shot her.

Critic Robert McCown analyzes the final scene in terms of the colors of black and white. "The fierce contrast of black against white—or very light gray—has its purposes. In two or three pages we see the horror of a soul, blasted by the sin of despair, a soul which, we feel had at one time had a glimpse of the light and a way of peace, but rejected it" (McCown 285).

In the end the Misfit, Darkness and Evil, was responsible for helping the grandmother find the Goodness and Light. This is an ironic end to this story because one would think that Good would prevail in the face of Evil. Sometimes it is the less likely person or idea that has the greatest effect rather than the strongest. Not everything is black and white, good and bad. There is always a middle ground, a gray area that is overlooked.

Works Cited