One of the traits that is commonly associated with the writing of Southern storyteller Flannery O’Connor is the use of shocking violence in order to advance her rhetorical arguments. One of the more ironic uses of violence occurs when she chooses to use it for the representation of salvation, frequently through the use of characters who are physically and/or spiritually grotesque in nature. “A Good Man is Hard to Find” is one of O’Connor’s most popular stories, and it demonstrates this principle. The Misfit is a murderer who shocks a Pharisaically pious grandmother into authentic spiritual awareness even as he kills her family, and then kils her. Critics emphasize the fulfillment of this salvation in O’Connor’s stories, specifically on the saving of the grandmother in this tale. While the grandmother’s salvation is a significang experience, the Misfit is just as important if one is to understand the spiritual elements in the story. First, this paper tackles the part that spiritual events have in the writing of O’Connor. Then, this paper will move to the importance of the Misfit’s decision to reject God, as well as his motives for making that decision. Finally, the paper closes with a look at the duality within O’Connor’s own personality, as shown through the depiction of the grandmother and the Misfit.
In general, critics pay attention to the significance of the demonstration and fulfillment of the event of salvation in the works of O’Connor. David Eggenschwiler writers that “O’Connor joins many excellent philosophers and theologians in assuming that man is a spiritual creature and that human problems cannot be adequately considered without regard to his full being” (p. 73). The majority of O’Connor’s short stories emphasize this point, and in writing them O’Connor places her own religious beliefs before the reader (Shinn, p. 64). Critics often focus first on characters who experience salvation, as they believe that those characters must be the focus of O’Connor’s own attention in the portrayal of her spiritual beliefs, showing the simple nature of conversion. However, I would argue that O’Connor’s beliefs in this area are more complex, as evidenced by the very existence of the Misfit and his rejection of God.
Within “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” the majority of scholars pay attention to the grandmother, assuming that the spiritual focus was to be placed on her. Eggenschwiler writes that the tales of O’Connor “usually reach their climaxes and end with the violent beginnings of this new birth” (p. 78). At the end of “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” this violence happens right at the end of the story. The grandmother experiences salvation at the story’s end, through her own violent murder. The fact that she shows the Misfit compassion right before she passes away shows that she has spiritually changed from believing in her own self-sufficiency to realizing the necessity of dependence on God. She suggests that the Misfit should also pray. The conversion experience of the grandmother is important for the purpose and meaning of the story. However, more attention needs to be directed toward the Misfit, because it is impossible to understand the spiritual truths of the story completely otherwise.
In this story, the Misfit makes a very conscious choice to reject Jesus. He realizes that he faces a choice to lay down his own life and follow Christ or keep on enjoying his own life, in which he gets to do as he chooses, which shows self-worship rather than worship of a larger deity. He realizes the costs associated with the choice to follow Jesus, and instead he chooses not to pay that price. Instead, he holds fat to his autonomy, saying, “I don’t want no hepI’m doing all right by myself” (O’Connor, p. 373). Eggenschwiler asserts that it is possible for the Misfit to perceive the connection between Jesus and the grandmother; this is why he shrinks back from the chance to touch her – and from the chance to accept her forgiveness – because that choice is part of his decision to reject God (p. 92). To give his rejection the fullest expression, he does not just turn away from her touch; he shoots her, not once but three times. The number three is not just connected to the Trinity but is also the number of times that St. Peter would reject Christ in the hours after the crucifixion. This triune shooting expresses two simultaneous climaxes in the story: the apogee of the violence, and the actual moment of the grandmother’s “new birth” in salvation. When the grandmother reaches out to touch the Misfit, he jumps back “as if a snake had bitten him and [shoots] her three times through the chest” (O’Connor, p. 375).
The reference to the snake is particularly of interest here. From the very beginning of the Old Testament, the snake stands as a symbol of treachery toward God and man, beginning with the temptation in the Garden of Eden. It is worth asking whether or not this snake is assigned a figurative role in reiterating the distance between the Misfit and God. In any case, some powerful motive must have caused the Misfit to reject salvation in a way that is so disrespectful and violent. That motive might well have been love of self; in this case, the murder might have given him a sense of freedom and power. The grotesque nature of his spiritual condition incited him to an act of violence, even though his true battle was against God, not against the grandmother. He attempts to hide his own true nature even from himself by cloaking it as self-sufficiency, and he ultimately rejects Jesus and the truth of life that Jesus offers.
Another element worth considering has to do with the way in which O’Connor depicts herself in this pair of characters. Hendin talks about the dual sort of existence that O’Connor leads, presenting one aspect of herself as the “good” Catholic school girl who does not compromise her principles. In “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” this element of her personality emerges through the grandmother. However, the dual nature of O’Connor’s existence begins when one considers her as an author of tales that are “strange and violent” in nature (Hendin, p. 5). The Misfit appears to enjoy killing not just the grandmother but her entire family in this tale, and so O’Connor appears to enjoy creating stories in which so many people die in grotesque ways. The fact that such attention is paid to the grotesque element of these stories means that there must be a duality within O’Connor herself: a belief in the spiritual principles that the grandmother holds, countered by the awareness of that darker side of humanity. Hendin notes the “tension between these disparate selves – between O’Connor as Catholic daughter and O’Connor as writer” (p. 5) as a contributing factor to her complexity.
The spiritual events that involve the Misfit are just as significant as those that befall the grandmother. It is typical for scholars to focus on the grandmother’s presentation of the fulfillment of salvation in “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” but that decision simplifies the story too much. That restrictive viewpoint patronizes O’Connor’s narrative genius by restricting the number of viewpoints at work. The narrow literary merit of such spiritually focused works as the Left Behind series of novels stands in stark contrast with the literary merit of the works of O’Connor. If one only considers the spiritual elements of the grandmother’s experience in the story, one receives an incomplete picture of the spiritual nature of man. It is true that the grandmother begins the story in a state of self-sufficiency and moves toward salvation, but it is important to see both sides of the spiritual choice that faces each person. For the grandmother’s choice to appear significant, the alternative that the Misfit represents is essential. After all, the Garden of Eden only lasted a matter of days, because the choice that the serpent offered was immediately accepted by Adam and Eve, and the resulting transgression led to their expulsion from the Garden. For each person, the choice of ending up in the company of the grandmother or the Misfit awaits; it is in that complexity that O’Connor finds the best and the worst of her characters, and her stories.
Works Cited
Eggenschwiler, David. The Christian Humanism of Flannery O’Connor. Detroit: Wayne State
Hendin, Josephine. The World of Flannery O’Connor. London: Indiana University Press, 1972.
O’Connor, Flannery. “A Good Man is Hard to Find.” Norton Introduction to Literature: Shorter
Ninth Edition. Booth, Alison, J. Hunger, and Kelly Mays. New York: W.W. Norton and
Company, 2006, 364-375.
