A Good Man Is Hard to Find

Chance of Fate

The story "A Good Man is Hard to Find" is written by Flannery O'Conner. The short story published in 1953 is based on Southern point of view criticizing stereotypes that often go on from old traditions and ignorance of what is sought to be right or wrong. The grandmother portrays her ignorance throughout the story by her opinionated judgments that she makes, giving the reader details of the views on racism at the time.

In O'Connor's short story, she utilizes irony on Bailey's mother. She views herself as a proper southern lady. Her actions reveal that she is indeed not who she lives up to be a gossiper, liar, and uses racial language as evidence to which she really is. The grandmother was not very Christian like, despite her claims and beliefs. She was selfish, rude, and never took responsibility when she was to blame. The astronomical odds of meeting the Misfit by chance or coincidence cause us to questions: is fate something you have control over?

The plot of the story is focused on Gothicism. It starts off when a family decides to go on a trip to Florida, and the misfortune of encountering with the "Misfit." In the beginning the grandmother represents to the reader of what type of person she really is, a polite, sweet old lady who follows old traditions. The irony occurs when she encounters the Misfit which caused her to reach out to him. In the end, the Misfit causes the grandmother to see who she really is; he had a better understanding of what it meant to be a "Christian" better than the grandmother did. The grandmother despite all her actions did not knew what she did wrong; the Misfit knew what he'd done wrong.

In the story, the family encounters the Misfit by chance due to Bailey crashing and the distraction made by the cat. The grandmother in the story also plays a major role in fate in the story. After all, it was her choice to bring the cat when Bailey didn't want it to come along. The grandmother's actions by bringing the cat cause Bailey to crash the vehicle. Her selfishness in the beginning of wanting to visit east Tennessee rather than the family plan to go to Florida gives evidence that she is self-centered. In attempt to change Bailey's mind, the grandmother tries to use the "escaped criminal," to try to scare her son into submission and convince him to go to Tennessee instead, "I wouldn't take my children in any direction with a criminal like that aloose in it."

Fate can be a misfortune of having. Not everyone deserves the fate that they get, just because of one person's view. In an article about a school shooting spree, "A twenty year-old man wearing combat gear and armed with semiautomatic pistols and a semiautomatic rifle killed twenty six people, twenty of them children (Barron). Was it their "fate" to be slaughtered in a public school? Or did it happen by chance that they were there and the killer randomly chose the location? In the story, was it the fate of the family to die because of the grandmother's actions? This proves that your fate can be caused by other people's decisions.

The bluntness of the grandmother pointing