A+Good+Man+is+Hard+to+Find

__**Summary:**__ The story "A Good Man is Hard to Find" is about a family who is taking a road trip to Florida from Georgia. There are 6 family members including the grandmother, who doesn't want to go to Florida, but instead wants to go to Tennessee and she voices her displeasure throughout the story. The father (Bailey), his wife (un-named), and their 3 children (8 year old John Wesley, June Star, and a baby). The grandmother is reading the newspaper in the beginning of the story, and tries talking the family out of going to Florida because an ex con called the "misfit" is on the loose. Her warnings are ignored, and the family departs Atlanta to travel to Florida. Just outside of Toombsboro, the grandmother tells a story of an old house she had remembered on a dirt path, and how the family should visit the house. Knowing that Bailey won't take a detour just to see an old house, she makes up a story about how there is silver hidden in a secret panel somewhere inside the house. The children become insistent on visiting the house to find the hidden silver, throwing fits and kicking Bailey's seat. Finally, Bailey gives in and agrees to sidetrack to visit the house, but insists this will be the only time during the trip. The family takes the dirt road to the house, and as they drive the road becomes more dangerous. They get in an accident, and while everyone is being accounted for, the grandmother remembers that the old house was in Tennessee, not Georgia. As they wait for assistance, they see a black vehicle and flag it down. Three men get out of the vehicle and strike up a conversation with the family. As the man in the glasses with a gun starts ordering the family to line up, he mentions how children make him nervous. The grandmother shrieks and voices that the man is the misfit. The misfit, and his two accomplices Bobby Lee, and Hiram begin to separate the family from the grandmother. First, the grandmother insists that bailey give the misfit a t-shirt from his car, so Bobby Lee and Hiram take Bailey away and moments later there's a gunshot. Next, the mother and children are invited to join their father, so she takes them with Bobby Lee and Hiram. Moments later there's multiple gunshots. During this time, the grandmother and the misfit are conversing with one another, and the grandmother attempts to talk him out of killing her. She tells him she knows he's a good man, and that he won't shoot an old lady. She tells him whatever he did in the past is forgivable by god, and that he shouldn't kill her. As the end nears, she tries to reach out to him, and he shoots her three times in the chest.

__**Topics:**__ The topics for "A Good Man is Hard to Find" are: Family, vacation, murder, outlaws, crime, religion, and death.

__**Evaluation:**__ This story did not fit the title at all, but in a good way. The title "A Good Man is Hart to Find" would imply that this is a love story, however it is the complete opposite. The beginning and middle part of the story was a bit bland, and I thought it would just be a story about a road trip to Florida with an annoying old lady telling her family stories about her past. After the car accident is where this story takes a complete 180, and moves from snooze fest to sadistic.

It was a type of story where the reader actually wants to root for the villain, mainly because the grandmother is an annoying bore. I felt that the misfit was a more enticing character than anyone else in the story, due to his southern twang and his cool under pressure.The family characters themselves were either boring (Bailey and his wife); annoying: grandmother, John Wesley, and June Star; or had no major impact on the story: baby. This made for no real attachment to those characters, and when they get killed there's really no let down for the readers.

Another aspect of this story was a religious standpoint when the grandmother is talking to the misfit. She try's to talk him out of killing her, without any real regard to her family. When she's pleading with the misfit, not once does she say "please don't kill my family", she only thinks about herself. She constantly tells him that he's a good man and that his family wouldn't want him to kill an old lady. She also uses god and Jesus as a cop-out to sway his opinion, however it backfires when he says he's not a man of god.

In all, this was an entertaining story to read, although it's long it is a quick read because it keeps the reader on the edge of the seat.

__**Citation:**__ //O'Connor, Flannery. "A Good Man is Hard to Find". Literature and the Writing Process//. 4th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1996. 183-193. Print.

__**WIKI PART II**__

__**Resources**__ The website itself was very informative, and a trustworthy source for information on Georgia-based literary artists. It talks about her early life, to her work in college that led to a career in writing. It also talked about her death, and how she was well remembered after she died. This website also discusses Flannery O'Connor's writing style, and the underlying message she often hid in her work to be discovered. The website discusses her religious writing style, and how she used the darker side of religion in her work in her search for the holy truth. The website also talks about how she uses her southern roots in her literary work, and the theme often centrals around a family event. The website also talks about her ailments and how she became better recognized for her work after her death which includes being inducted into the Georgia Writers Hall of Fame in 2000.
 * Internet Resource**- Information on [|Flannery O'Connor]

Gordon, Sarah. "Flannery O'Connor (1925-1964)." New Georgia Encyclopedia. 29 September 2014. Web. 01 April 2015.
 * __Citation:__**

__**Resources** __ This article's greatest attribute is the way it progresses social status throughout the story, providing an understanding for how the main character feels and try's to save her own life through social structure. It talks about the grandmother's struggle to identify and establish her social class to the misfit. It speaks about the way she barters for her life, and how the social order doesn't matter to the misfit because all he wants is blood, not money. It also talks about the importance of religion in "A Good Man is Hard to Find", and how O'Connor uses religion as a bargaining chip for the grandmother's life, but the social structure doesn't allow god, or anything else to stop the misfit from killing the family. Mainly, the article talks about social structure, and the grandmother's struggles to adapt to the changing climate throughout the entire story, not just the killings. Her social position no longer matters, not to the family or the misfit, which eventually leads to everyone in the family's death.
 * Database Resource-** Article about "[|A Good Man is Hard to Find]"

__**Citation:**__ Owens, Mitchell. "The Function Of Signature In 'A Good Man Is Hard To Find'."// Studies In Short Fiction. //33.1 (1996): 101//. ////Academic Search Premier. //Web. 1Apr.2015.