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Throughout this story, the grandmother struggles to find what the definition of “good” is. The grandmother wears a hat to show others that she is a lady. However, this hat is also a symbol for her foolish ethical code. When the grandmother prepares for the car trip with the family, she dresses up in collars and cuffs to show she is a lady “In case of an accident” (12). The grandmother acts as if she is completely undisturbed with the fact that she would be dead in this situation and remains unconcerned that her son, daughter-in-law, and three grandchildren would have also possibly died. The grandmother, however, only cares about her appearance as a lady. This silly concern shows how self-centered she really is and how delicate her ethical conviction is. This symbol further develops when the family becomes, in fact, involved in a car accident. The grandmother’s hat falls apart, much like her ethical conviction, and after she continued to stare at it, she eventually “let it fall on the ground.”(96) Once she is thrown from the car and her family is face-to-face with the Misfit, the brim of the grandmother’s hat then falls off. Her appearance as a lady melts as the damaged hat falls.…
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Porter uses dialogue first and foremost to show the vast difference between what what we want to say and what we really end up saying. A great example of this would be Granny’s dislike towards the doctor. Granny makes comments here and there such as, “Where were you forty years ago when I pulled through milk-leg and double pneumonia? You weren’t even born.” (7) but she can not manage to come up with the exact words to say to convey her anger properly. The structure of her insults simply sound snappy and almost like whining instead of angry or purposeful. Granny’s lack of ability to relay the true meaning of her emotions shows the reader that she is slowly losing her grip on reality. The way Porter uses dialogue also serves as a theme for the…
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‘my grandmother is a brilliant storyteller and conversationalist when she is not attacking people with bones in her words.’…
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depict her opinion in this particular story by using the character of the grandmother to…
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The grandmother has a very different view on the world from the rest of her family that she lives with. She believes everything should be the same as it was when she grew up, so children should respect their elders, strangers shouldn’t really be strangers, and you should be nice to everyone. But, living with a new generation things are very different and she doesn’t realize it. She feels as if her elder authority can do anything…
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The author, Flannery O’Connor created the unnamed grandmother as a very interesting type of person. She is different by having complicated ideas, conflicts, and thoughts to form the grandmother. The grandmother has a hypocritical personality and is old-fashioned “old south” to be different than being a normal old lady.…
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Flannery O’Conner short story “A Good Man is hard to Find” Is about this grandmother who is plotting to get her own way through whatever means is necessary. So the fact is “The grandmother’s whole personality is built upon the fictions she tells herself and her family” (Schenck, 340). “She creates the stories behind the visual phenomena she sees and explains the relationships between events or her own actions which have no logic other than that which she lends them” (Schenck, 340). The grandmother who imaged a life she once had that turn to a tragedy of reality for her and her family. She does not admit it, but her thoughts manifest themselves physically and emotionally. The grandmother got so embarrassed that her cheek was red and her eyes widen and she begins to stomp her feet and this really upset her at that moment.…
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The second characteristic the Grandmother has as a tragic hero is being judgmental. There are many examples of her judging others in the story. She wears a “nice” outfit for the trip so that if she is found dead on the side of the highway,…
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The grandmother frequently passed judgement on to others throughout the story, especially towards the misfit. She judges the lack of goodness in the world and says racist comments but believes she is a “lady”. During the story the grandmother was dishonest to her family about the secret panel and does not tell them how she mistook the location ultimately leading them to their death. When the grandmother’s family is taken away to be murdered she doesn’t beg him to spare them but pleads for her own life. The grandmother repeated, “You wouldn’t shoot a lady, would you?”…
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We know she's a vain creature, as she dresses nicely for the trip to Florida so in the event of a fatal car accident, "anyone seeing her dead on the highway would know at once that she was a lady." (O'Connor 33). She also lies quite frequently as we see on page 39 when she lies about there being a secret panel in an old plantation home. But the Grandmother's worst quality is her inability to see her own faults. In the diner the she has a conversation with Red Sammy, they talk about how "People are certainly not nice like they used to be" (O'Connor 37). The two of them blame talk on and on about how people today lack manners and you can't trust anyone these days. While the Grandmother doesn't stop to consider how she isn't that nice of a person and Red Sammy doesn't think about how he's been rude to wife multiple times, telling her to quit lounging around and sending her away when she tries to join in the conversation. The two of them only see the faults of others and see themselves as perfect people. This self righteousness the Grandmother instantly seemed familiar to me. The traits revealed held similar qualities to those of a biblical sinner like the Pharisees or a tax collector. In the New Testament, Pharisees are seen as self righteous hypocrites, who like the Grandmother, see the faults of everyone but themselves. The similarities between the Grandmother and a biblical sinner aren't that far fetched when you considered that as a devout Catholic like O'Connor would definitely have heard liturgy mentioning a biblical sinner. Other authors have drawn upon biblical connections in O'Connor's story with author Hallam B. Bryant's theory in "Reading the Map In 'A Good Man is Hard to Find'". He believes that O'Connor tied the book to her Catholic faith. Saying that the family represent heretics who lack practices and/or qualities…
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Bailey the grandmother’s son I would say is a “flat character. In the story his attitude never changes. He’s very quiet and gets pushed around by his mother. I would say that he gets taken advantage of because of this very reason. June Star, Bailey’s daughter and the granddaughter, isn’t very polite in the story. She’s very rude, mean spirited, and seems to be ill willed towards other people. Instead of her being sympathetic when the family got into an accident, she was disappointed that no one in the family was killed. John Wesley, Bailey’s dad and the grandson, is portrayed as a happy go lucky 8 year old boy. When the grandmother mentions going to see the house that she remembers, John seems very excited to be able to explore the secret panel. The Grandmother is characterized as rude and rather pushy with her views. Her son, Bailey, seems annoyed with the way that his mother acts. The reader’s perception of the Grandmother isn’t that great. She shows that she is a racist with her comment that she makes when she sees a little black kid. Her pushiness is what caused the family to get in the situation that they were in in the first place. The Grandmother shows no sympathy for other people. She is the worse out of the whole family.…
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"Look, Darling," she said. "At some point history will judge us, and it's judgement can be cruel and arbitrary: just look at Richard III. So I'm writing a little piece. Because they should know that we survivors got through it the best way we could, through it was sometimes…
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The mentioning of the word “grandmother”, is often followed by an image of a sweet elderly woman who will often encourage, support, and model what type of person another should strive to be. In cases like the one presented by Flannery O’Connor in his short story, “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” the grandmother possesses qualities that are rarely associated with grandmas. Most fictional characters have flaws and redeemable qualities to parallel living people and the “grandmother” in the story follows the same trend by having some redeemable qualities because she is dishonest, manipulative and selfish.…
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He asks her why he let two strangers charge their gasoline—he’s obviously had been cheated because those prople were never coming back to pay for their gasoline, and the grandmother says he did it because he’s “a good man.” In this case, her definition of “good” seems to include gullibility, poor judgment, and blind faith, none of which are inherently “good.” The way the grandma died was the way young kids sit crossing their legs made it seem like when she died she was like an innocent child at the time of her…
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Throughout the story there were two main characters; the narrator (assumed Granddaughter), and Mataji the Grandmother. Both characters would be best described as “dynamic”, as they both have many personality traits, ranging from good to bad throughout the story. As the story itself follows two plots being present and past, similarities were noticed between the Granddaughter and Mataji’s actions. Proving the strong relationship between the Granddaughter and Mataji.…
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