The grandmother, in A Good Man is Hard to Find passes for a manipulator who wants to use every chance she gets to influence what the rest of the family members do. Her relationship with the rest of the family members is not as good because she constantly passes judgments on others, criticizing them
The characters in the story are not realistic because they are a complete replica of a family at war. It is not a close knit family and this is made worse by the grandmother who is pretentious and children who are disrespectful and aggressive, the father is full of anger and the mother lacks personality and character. The Misfit too lacks a sense of humanity. They just help bring out the story of a family at odds and one that is violent but in a way, they pass as funny people because of their actions.
O’Connor changes the mood of the second part of the story by introducing the Misfit and by grandmother misleading and distracting them from their journey. Even the accident in a way points to the family’s sad ending.
The Misfit was a murderer who took the life of his father but of course he says that is not true. He may have had a good relationship with his family because at one point, he claims that his parents the finest people in the world. He refers to his father’s heart as pure gold. This perhaps is a pointer that it was well with his family.
The Misfit thinks that Jesus did not raise Lazarus from the dead. He goes on to shoot the grandmother because she calls him one of his children. But he goes on to shoot at her and kills her. He finally says that the grandmother would have been a good woman if there was somebody to shoot her all her life. This statement could mean that the grandmother was a bad person and it is the face of death that changed her.
