Themes and message

Good and evil

Good and evil are important themes in the short story “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” by Flannery O’Connor. The title itself points to the fact that it is difficult to find a person who is entirely good. In fact, you could argue that none of the characters in the story are entirely “good”. Bailey is a passive character who gives in to the demands of the grandmother and the children and later stands by and allows himself and the rest of his family to be killed, without making much of an effort to save them. The two older children, John Wesley and June Star, are spoiled and ill-mannered. The grandmother’s rash actions and her tendency to talk too much will prove deadly both to her and to the rest of her family. She is indirectly responsible for their deaths, first by convincing them to look for a house that was not even in the area, then by boldly announcing to the Misfit that she knows his identity. Also, the Misfit remarks that the grandmother “ ‘would of been a good woman, if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life’ ” (ll. 497-498). This could suggest that good and evil are somehow tied together. Through his evil actions, the Misfit provokes the inner goodness of the grandmother, who seems to empathize with him at the end.

The Misfit i...