Innocence, Ignorance and Illumination: A Good Man Is Hard to Find - Book Report/Review Example

? Innocence, Ignorance and Illumination: A Critical Analysis of Flannery O’Connor’s Short Story, “A Good Man Is Hard to Find”. College Abstract This paper is a critical analysis of Flannery O’Connor’s short story, A Good Man Is Hard to Find. The paper critically discusses the aspect of choice and consequences and how they play a role in the expression of the theme in the story. The paper seeks to approach the critical analysis using formalism, psychoanalytic criticism, and Marxist criticism theories. The paper does not seek to offer a summary of the literary work but attempts to define my personal understanding and analysis of the short story. The story is set in Atlanta, sometime in the 1940’s or early 50’s. This is based on the facts that the story was first published in 1953 and the song Tennessee Waltz was released in 1946. A family decides to drive to Florida for a three-day vacation. However, the children’s grandmother derails their plan, and the whole family ends up being murdered. The characters in the play are a nuclear family composed of a father (Mr. Bailey), his wife, a baby; two kids (John Wesley and June Star), Mr. Bailey’s mother, and a gang of three led by the Misfit. Other characters are Pitty Sing, the grandmother’s cat, Red Sammy Butts, the owner of a roadside filling station, Red Sam’s wife, and a Negro child. The whole story is centered on the grandmother as the main character, with the Misfit playing a second leading role. Innocence, Ignorance, And Illumination: A Critical Analysis of Flannery O’Connor’s Short Story, “A Good Man Is Hard to Find”. When Marxist criticism is applied to this story, one realizes that the grandmother thinks of herself as belonging to a superior class and tends to frown upon others as belonging to a lower class. She dressed up for the trip in fine clothing that at the time was usually associated with elite ladies. She frowns at John Wesley’s offhand remarks about Georgia and Tennessee and remarks how the black people from the country do not have as much as their family does. Her reference to the Negro boy as “pickaninny” also points to her regard of black people as lower class beings. She goes further to tell the story of how a Negro boy ate a watermelon left for her on her doorstep. She alludes to her past as a maiden lady being wooed by a gentleman who died quite a wealthy man. The obsession with wealth and status reveals itself in comments made by June Star. Her repeated claims of opting to maintain her status even if she were offered a million dollars point to her innocence and a materialistic upbringing. In her ignorance, she is of the opinion that having a million dollars is the best thing to have. Red Sammy’s wife thinks no one is trustworthy, including her husband. Everyone seems to want more than they deserve. Red Sammy is of the opinion that modern people have no sense of class, self-worth, or honor. Even those who dress and talk well are just out to rob. He tells the story of the two mill-workers who purchased gas on credit and have never returned to settle their bill. He and the grandmother then begin discussing better times, declaring that all their current problems in society were a result of Europeans begging for money from Americans. The grandmother thinks of life as a plantation owner, glamorous and classy. When asked where the plantation went, she explains it by using the title of a book that depicts the life of a daughter of a spoiled plantation owner, Gone with the Wind. Her awe at seeing the six graves and her memories of one such plantation fuels her desire to visit an old plantation. She conjures up an excuse to lead the family from their path towards Florida to go for a sightseeing mission. She plays on the children’s value of wealth by talking about a fictitious silver treasure buried in some secret panel. The grandmother thinks that the Misfit must be a good man, because he seems like he is not of common blood. She thinks he must come from nice people. These statements show that the grandmother thinks good people are only of a certain class, and the rest are, therefore, bad. She goes ahead to suggest he should change his name, since she can just take a look at him and tell he is a good man at heart and not a misfit. In using psychoanalytic criticism, one has to look at the grandmother’s reasoning and morals. She seems to want to live a Christian life in service to biblical tenets. However, she is a vain and selfish woman. The Misfit seems cruel at first sight, but on deeper analysis seems to be kind, remorseful, and aware of the differences between good and evil. His actions are evil, yet in his mind they seem to be for the good of all. On killing the grandmother, he exclaims that the woman would have lived a righteous life, had she had someone to shoot her every minute of her life. He thinks of himself as of some sort of God, the one having the right to mete out punishment to those who truly deserve it. He does not think he deserves all the punishment that the world has shown him, for he does not know the crime he committed to warrant such punishment. Thus, he sets out in the world to make others pay for their crimes as individuals. The Misfit asserts twice that children make him nervous. This may be because he views the children as innocent, not deserving of punishment. He recalls his own childhood, and even though he does not remember doing anything wrong, he admits he is now not a good man. The statement by his dad,  'it's some that can live their whole life out without asking about it and it's others has to know why it is, and this boy is one of the latters. He's going to be into everything!’ (O’Connor 17) is an illumination, a realization that what his dad predicted of him is what he now is. The statement summarizes his journey from innocence, through ignorance, and ultimately, into understabding. The Misfit recalls how he has moved from being a gospel singer, been in the armed service, an undertaker, worked on the railroads, plowed the land, been twice married, seen a person burnt alive…All this points to a man in search of himself. It is a search for illumination as to the meaning of his life. He is ignorant of what life is all about until he makes the decision not to be ignorant anymore. “That's why I sign myself now. I said long ago, you get you a signature and sign everything you do and keep a copy of it. Then you'll know what you done and you can hold up the crime to the punishment and see do they match and in the end you'll have something to prove you ain't been treated right. I call myself The Misfit," he said, "because I can't make what all I done wrong fit what all I gone through in punishment." (O’Connor 21). He does not become a thief, because no one had anything he wanted. He blames his ignorance for his suffering and wrongful punishment. His decision to sign papers himself is a declaration of his moving away from ignorance and regaining his innocence. He becomes a killer, for he has found himself as one who fairly and righteously dispenses justice and punishment. Bailey’s conduct seems to make him worthy of punishment. Bailey’s words to his mother shock even the children and make the Misfit’s face redden. Therefore, he is the first to be killed together with his son. The mother of the children seems to irritate the Misfit with her heaving noises, and together with the daughter, they are the second group to be killed. He compares himself to Jesus, perhaps an allusion to both coming to the world to wipe away peoples’ sins. He blames his not knowing the truth about Jesus for his behavior. He feels that the ignorance about Jesus takes him away from innocence and makes him do the mean things he does. In the final act, he shoots the grandmother and views it as an act of a savior, setting the old woman free from her sins and delivering her into righteousness. Using formalism, imagery develops the theme. Irony and ambiguity come into play to express the different characters’ innocence, ignorance, and illumination. The Misfit’s sums up the entirety of the short story. "She would of been a good woman," The Misfit said, "if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life." (O’Connor 23). That statement shows that the Misfit thinks the grandmother would have lived a more righteous life full of illumination and without the ignorance had someone been there to control and punish her when she broke away from innocence. The grandmother has been shown to lack innocence throughout the story. She lies to get the family to veer away from their chosen path. This may reflect how she has been manipulating and controlling her relatives throughout their. She may be responsible for eroding her son’s and grandchildren’s innocence over time. She then lies about how many times the car rolled over. The Misfit, who had witnessed the accident happening, corrects her. There is irony in what the grandmother exclaims, as she tries to convince her son not to take the kids to Florida. “...I wouldn't take my children in any direction with a criminal like that aloose in it. I couldn't answer to my conscience if I did." (O’Connor 1). In her ignorance, she ends up doing just that, taking her son and his family to the very direction where they are confronted and killed by the criminal. The character of the Misfit shows some contradiction. When the grandmother touches him, he shoots her three times in the chest. When Pitty Sing, the cat, rubs up against him immediately after, he picks it up. This may depict his view of the cat as innocent and of the grandmother as sinful. The grandmother dresses up for the trip just in case an accident happens, so that anyone finding her will recognize her as a lady. The irony is that she ends up causing an accident, which leads to her death. Conclusion A Good Man Is Hard to Find is a story whose characters lack innocence. The three prison escapees are killers. The kids have been raised spoilt, unappreciative, used to getting what they want, and materialistic. Mr. Bailey shows some disdain for his mother, he largely ignores her, and occasionally talks to her in foul language. Red Sam and his wife are suspicious by nature and do not believe in innocence. Ignorance is also shown in most of the characters. There are moments of illumination; for example, when the Misfit asks Bailey to accompany his two accomplices; Bailey immediately knows that he and his son are being taken to their death. When the grandmother sees the Misfit’s face twisted, it suddenly becomes clear to her that this man is what he is because of people like her. People have judged and misjudged him throughout his life. Works Cited O’Connor, Flannery. A good man is hard to find and other stories. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1953. Print. Read More