A Good Man Is Hard To Find

The first story in O’Connor’s A Good Man Is Hard to Find is the short story by the same name.  This is also one of her most difficult to understand, causing many readers stop reading after this story (unfortunately).  In actuality, once we understand how this story works, the rest of her stories will be easier for us to understand. The interaction between the Misfit and the Grandmother clearly demonstrates O’Connor’s central theme of dark mercy, of grace working through suffering.

No Room for Pharisees

In her collection of letters, The Habit of Being (hereafter HB), O’Connor explains what she intended this story to be:  ”The story is a duel of sorts between the Grandmother and her superficial beliefs and the Misfit’s more profoundly felt involvement with Christ’s action which set the world off balance for him” (437).

The Misfit knows the world is inherently unjust and filled with suffering; therefore, it merits two responses:  do violence to your neighbor before he gets you, or willingly suffer the injustice as Christ did.  This latter response is only appropriate if Jesus really did raise people from the dead.  If he did, then he really is God, and must be follow by imitation.  If he didn’t, then his way is utter foolishness, and violence is the only option.

What the Misfit clearly understands is that there is no third option.  The Grandmother’s banal religiosity is a denial of what Christ’s action means in the world.  The world is an awful place–so be a homicide or a saint.  Any other course of action (like agnosticism or nominal Christianity) only adds to the suffering in the world.

Violence and Grace

The violence of this story, surprisingly, comes not when the Misfit’s men shoot the entire family, including the baby.  These murders occur “ob-scene,” that is, “off-stage.”  The central act of violence occurs when the Misfit shoots the Grandmother in the chest–and so close is his gun that blood splatters on his glasses.  This violent action is actually a snap reaction ( “as if a snake had bitten him”) to the old woman’s sudden realization that the Misfit was really her son.  She exclaims, “Why you’re one of my babies.  You’re one of my own children!”, then reaches out and touches him on the shoulder.

O’Connor explains that this realization, touch, and consequent murder compose the key moment of the story–the moment when grace enters the story.  She writes,

“Grace, to the Catholic way of thinking, can and does use as its medium the imperfect, purely human, and even hypocritical.  Cutting yourself off from Grace is a very decided matter, requiring a real choice, act of will, and affecting the very ground of the soul.  The Misfit is touched by the Grace that comes through the old lady when she recognizes him as her child, as she has been touched by the Grace that comes through him in his particular suffering.  His shooting her is a recoil, a horror at her humanness, but after he has done it and cleaned his glasses, the Grace has worked in him and he pronounces his judgment:  she would have been a good woman if he had been there every moment of her life.  True enough” (HB 289).

True Woman, Good Woman

Grace comes to the Grandmother through the realization that she is going to die, murdered by this Misfit who has killed everyone else in her family.  This causes her to yammer almost hysterically about “good men” and praying to Jesus.  All this talk flows from her gentility, her belief that being a “good man” depends on being born of good parents–this is the core doctrine in her Christianity.  Her sudden realization at the end of the story shatters this doctrine:  she understands at once that “she is responsible for the man before her and joined to him by ties of kinship which have their roots deep in the mystery she has been merely prattling about so far” (O’Connor, Mystery and Manners 112-13).  All her gentility dies with that realization, and she responds as a mother should–by touching her son in sorrow, love, and pity.  For a moment, she becomes a good woman because she finally becomes a true woman. And then she dies, more a Christian than ever before.

Suffering Isn’t Meaningless

Grace comes to the Misfit in a similar way.  His mother becomes a good woman through suffering and death. His final statement about her shows that he understands this.  Though he still doesn’t know for sure whether Jesus raised men from the dead, he now knows that suffering unto death can have an undeniably real effect on a person–Grace exists and can change banal women into good mothers.

His last statement is a rebuke to his henchman, who has declared that their recent cruelties were “some fun!”  The Misfit responds, “Shut up, Bobby Lee…It’s no real pleasure in life.”  Though O’Connor ensures that we cannot sentimentalize this statement, she does show us that the Misfit’s dilemma has been answered.  All the world is unjust and full of suffering, as he knew.  But his mother’s change has shown him that Grace is real–and therefore Christ is real.  There is more to suffering than meaninglessness, and therefore his way of life is condemned.  Christ’s Grace through the Grandmother’s touch now demands a change in the Misfit.

Beware of Platitudes

There are many more things worthy of discussion in this story:  Bailey’s character in contrast/comparison to the Misfit, the wife’s reaction to the suffering, the order of events that lead to the Accident.  These are important things to consider, since they all lead up to the main point of the story.  One essential thing to keep in mind when reading any good short story–and especially O’Connor’s–is to avoid the error of reducing a story to a single theme or moral platitude.  A well-crafted story always depends on every detail to communicate.  Separating the theme from the details is to ruin the poignancy of the theme.

O’Connor herself expresses the irreducibility of good fiction in this way:  ”The meaning of a story should go on expanding for the reader the more he thinks about it, but meaning cannot be captured in an interpretation…Too much interpretation is certainly worse than too little, and where feeling for a story is absent, theory will not supply it” (HB 437).

Interestingly, we should expect nothing less from this author, who teaches in every story to beware of platitudes–whether literary or moral.

Next Up: “The River”

Other O’Connor Resources:

• The Habit of Being (HB)–O’Connor’s letters
• Mystery and Manners (MM)–various essays and talks in which O’Connor discusses her work, method, and message
• The Complete Stories (CS)–the edition I’m using for the stories
• Wise Blood and The Violent Bear It Away–O’Connor’s only two novels

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