A Good Man is Hard to Find

A Reasonable Doubt- The Misfit

Flannery O Conner, the author “ A Good Man Is Hard to Find,” tells a story about a grandmother who lives with her son Bailey, his two children and the children’s mother in Georgia. They were taking a trip to Florida. The grandmother did not agree with the idea because she wanted to see her family in Tennessee; she read in the newspaper about a cold blooded murderer who ran away from the penitentiary, was on the way to Florida and calls himself the Misfit. Her instinct made it clear that it would be a terrible mistake to take the family to a place where the Misfit was headed. On the way, the grandmother thought about an old plantation she been to as a little girl; she made up a lie saying that there was a secret panel with silver that was never found in the house. The kids complained and Bailey stopped to see the place the grandmother told them about. Before she could tell them it wasn’t in Georgia, but Tennessee they had gotten into an awful car accident. Three men behind the hills, one known as the Misfit saw them. The grandmother did not recognize him at first, but knew he looked familiar. Finally, she says, “You’re the Misfit” (416). His polite manner towards people underestimates the cruelty that gives a huge space between them misunderstanding and understanding his reasons for pride, consideration for others and hate of the world.

The Misfit’s pride kept him assured of respect for older adults. He used words like yes maam throughout his conversation with the grandmother. She tries to persuade him in believing that he is a good man, he somehow considered but did not want to make himself seem “soft” over whelmed by her kind words and gestures. He tells her, “Nome, I ain’t a good man, but I ain’t the worst in the world neither” (417). His sensitive side made him feel vulnerable and weak in such a sense that he calls himself the Misfit; therefore he must put out the image of being a bad guy with no feelings attached, which may confuse his victims with such politeness and proper nature towards them. This shows that he was a respectful child that was somehow mistreated for no apparent reason and an outcast. His concern for not wearing clothes in front of the grandmother also signifies that he cares about his image and how people portray him to be.

The mix of the misfit’s good manners and concern for others is a good example of how much of a nice person he really is inside. He says, “Well, first you and Bobby Lee get him and that little boy to step over yonder with you…, The boys want to ask you something…, would you mind stepping back in them woods with them” (416)? In a strange, he could have murdered the grandmother, her son Bailey, the two children and the children’s mother all at once, but he took the initiative to separate them by asking his friends to take them into the woods after each kill, while he kept the grandmother busy with a little conversation. His considerate manner gives an impression that all of his victims were calm and not terrified in process of getting killed and having to see their love ones die.

Losing hope and not praying can cause anyone to despise the world. When the grandmother asked the Misfit if he prayed he simply told her no and listed everything he ever was and saw, “I was a gospel singer for a while, been in the arm service, both land and sea…, seen a man burnt alive oncet, I even seen a woman flogged” (417). The Misfit is somewhat traumatized by certain events in his life including getting sent to the penitentiary for a crime he can not remember (417). Being sent to prison, mistreated like an animal and being an outcast got him thinking like a killer, because of hate and pain inside of him. He blames the world for his emotional dilemma.

The Misfit’s character is a person who hides his painful, emotional, and hurtful feelings through politeness that strikes with a big surprise leaving a blank space or sentence into why he strikes the way he strikes; the world left him empty blanks to figure out the reason they treated him the way he was treated without a cause.

Works Cited

Connor, O’ Flannery. “A Good Man Is Hard to Find.”

Literature: An Introduction to Reading and Writing. Ed. Edgar V. Jacobs. 3^rd Compact

Ed. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall, 2006. 410-419.