A Good Man is Hard to Find by Flannery O’Connor Paragraph

George Larach

12/8/17

ELA

A Good Man is Hard to Find by Flannery O’Connor Paragraph

Question: What character do you find most interesting in the story? Why?

[In the story “A Good Man is Hard to Find” by Flannery O’Connor, we are deceived by the uninteresting and, one could say, dull establishing pages, only to be completely caught off guard by the compelling and spine-chilling outlaw The Misfit, who appears near the end of the story after a car accident.] “The grandmother shrieked. She scrambled to her feet and stood staring. ‘You’re The Misfit!” she said. ‘I recognized you at once!’ ‘Yes’m,’ said the man, smiling slightly as if he were pleased in spite of himself to be known, ‘but it would have been better for all of you, lady, if you hadn’t of reckernized me.’” The Misfit, for me, is the most compelling character because he seems to know exactly what he’s doing. Along with his two partners Hiram and Bobby Lee, The Misfit toys with his victims minds, giving them a false sense of hope when he asks Hiram to “try their car and see if it will run”, and when “his voice seemed to crack and the grandmother’s head cleared for an instant. She saw the man’s face twisted close to hers and as if he were going to cry and she murmured, ‘Why you’re one of my babies, You’re one of my own children!'” The Misfit then shot her three times in the chest. Throughout the whole encounter, The Misfit held complete control of the situation and he knew exactly what he was doing. He hinted, through dreary eyes and a dreamy voice, that he regularly thinks about the person he has become, and his reasoning as to why he does why he does. I think he is the most compelling character because he truly gives a sense of fear to the reader, and, even though you might have known exactly what was going to happen next, you couldn’t help but cringe and fear for the family’s life.