Hauntingly Inclusive

“A Good Man Is Hard To Find” by Flannery O' Connor

A good deal of what made this story surprising was the fact that it was so predictable. You almost expect the expected to not occur, but it ultimately does. It creates a false sense of irony, through our expectations as people in daily life, and our expectations as readers. As people we all hold ourselves to be above statistics. For the most part we do not hope, we genuinely believe that we are above tragedy. I am sure that many who read the story find elements that resonate with their own lives, the old-fashioned grandmother, difficult children, family tensions, and what have you. But as readers we try to leave most of that behind, and confront a text objectively and rationally. The child who sees a familiar family of six does not want to think of them as the victims of violence, but the reader undoubtedly knows that they will be due to the repeated and unsubtle hints to their future, in the text. However, I did find those two mind sets dueling with each other towards the end, in a desperate desire for a happy ending. I think there is a part of all of us which is occasionally inclined to feel that way. I believe that is part of the brilliance of the irony employed in the story, because we all know what will happen, but we fight to extinguish that knowledge. Which puts us as readers in a more direct contact with the family of characters, and leads to a greater awareness of our placement in the world. We know straight from the beginning of story that something horrid will happen, from the grandmother's dread, the repeated allusions to a serial killer, and lamentations over the past versus the present. Even up to the moment when the narrator reveals that the men in the car have guns, do we hope that the family will merely be saved from their recent accident. Every victim has the same thoughts as the reader at this point. Of course the emotions of a real victim are much more intense than that of the reader, but every victim thinks that it can't happen to them, until it does. Creating that same mentality in the reader, O' Connor also instills an inevitable sense of understanding to her audience, thus making her work immensely effective. This transference of emotion from character to reader produces a greater desire on the part of the reader to explain the actions of The Misfit, in search of a befitting meaning. The Misfit is simply a person who has been corrupted by the concept of Christ, and therefore attempts to amend what he perceives as errors made by Jesus through his own delusional logic. More than once he states that Jesus has created an imbalance, and believes that his actions have saved the old woman he killed. In a haze of confusion, The Misfit considers his sins as the solution to a faith system. By killing a man you can send him to God, and prove that he exists, and if he doesn't exist then we are all doomed anyway. The Misfit parades and wallows in his own angst. His doubt in the existence of God, has shattered the concept of normal living to him, and anyone who does live normally becomes a threat to him. As he endangers the life of the grandmother he determines that her actions before her death have proved what kind of woman she truly is; someone who is not misguided past events, or obligation. In that way The Misfit is his own Christ figure. The grandmother stops to think of those other than herself, and soon dismisses her long held beliefs. “Maybe He didn't raise the dead,” the grandmother exclaims in reference to Jesus. This statement reassures The Misfit in his actions, and empowers him to continue. She is also willing to accept a total stranger as her own son. The Misfit believes he has led her to be a great person, but in his own insanity ignores the fact that she has merely been traumatized into a state of delusion herself. The end result is that of lingering unease and chaos, as so many, including the reader, are swept into an unfading and irreconcilable nightmare.