The Misfit's Gambit

Flannery O'Connor's short story, "A Good Man Is Hard To Find," takes place in the South in the early 50's or so (it is never mentioned in the text, but that is the general consensus of the time period). It features a mildly eclectic family, with a slight focus on the grandmother, the mildly racist, judgmental, manipulative, hypocritical, "set in her ways" grandmother. By far the most developed character in the story, the narration seems to lend itself a bit to her own perceptions and biases. Nonetheless this tale begins with this eccentric family headed off on a trip and encountering interesting people on the way. When first reading it, it reminded me slightly of the movie Little Miss Sunshine near the beginning. But near the end we encounter the big ol' bad guy (and excellent use of Checkov's Gun), The Misfit. The Misfit and granny get into a nice spiritual debate, which end up with *SPOILER ALERT* everyone in the family dead.

What intersted me the most about this story was the dynamic of The Misfit and the grandmother, and what their debate entailed and really meant. After all, this is a thief, a criminal, and murderer talking about Jesus with an old lady as her family is murdered by his posse. With this exchange, this interaction, I think this was the story's attempt at pointing out the skewed morality of modern day Christianity. They touch on this directly, when talking about how Jesus rose the dead, with The Misfit saying, "and He shouldn't have done it. He shown everything off balance. If He did what He said, then it's nothing for you to do but thow away everything and follow Him, and if He didn't, then it's nothing for you to do but enjoy the few minutes you got left the best way you can by killing somebody or burning down his house or doing some other meanness to him." (P. 408) This is actually a section in The Bible, one which states that the followers of Christ should abandon all their earthly possesions and follow a life of absolute piousness. But, compared to the modern day view, even the one exemplified by the grandmother, does that really seem like the morality is held? Or is it simply a pick and choose view by this society to selfishly serve the self and morality be damned? It strays far from any sort of true absolute morality, and maybe that could be yet another symbol for The Misfit, the truth of the absoluteness of any type of religion, versus the self serving societal view of the grandmother, who could really be representing all of society. When you look at it this way, it becomes ever the more grim, and humorous (in an admittedly dark way) when The Misfit says, "She would have been a good woman if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life." (P. 409)
O’Connor, Flannery. “A Good Man Is Hard To Find.” The Norton Introduction to Literature.10^th ed. Peter Simon.  New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc, 2011. 396-409.