Literature continues to provide an alternative to reality as times change and conflicts arise. Good authors can satisfy this craving while simultaneously reflecting on current issues. One author who made the most of this genre was Flannery O’Connor, who even created her subgenre of Gothic fiction called the Southern Grotesque. In A Good Man is Hard to Find, her best-known short story, O’Connor incorporates her trademark blend of the grotesque, physical brutality, social justice, irony, and the concept of the outcast.
The narrative describes a tragic family vacation to Florida that results in calamity. The grandmother persuades the family to take a detour to an old farm, but they crash the vehicle on the route and get trapped on a remote road. The Misfit, a fugitive criminal, arrives shortly afterward and murders the whole family. Undoubtedly, he is the most unusual individual, as his moniker reveals how badly he blends into society. In addition, the cemetery with “five or six graves,” the village of “Toomsboro,” and how the woods “gaped like a dark open mouth,” are instances of the author’s ability to foreshadow a terrible event (O’Connor 203-208). The occurrences described in the novel are unusually awful, bizarre, and morbid. O’Connor employs foreshadowing to build tension, and since the reader is not purposefully swayed into thinking everything is typical, it is easy to notice.
Figures in A Good Man Is Hard to Find exemplify the Southern Gothic style by being peculiar and profoundly dysfunctional. The ” grandmother,” is a woman who looks to be a picky, sanctimonious, and resentful troublemaker. Considering her perceived self-esteem, she seems to have no problem fabricating a falsehood when it benefits her and frequently disparages her family (O’Connor 205). This way, the reader views the behavior of this character as atypical not expected of “the grandmother.”
Red Sammy, the tower’s owner, is another odd figure in the story. Notably, among Red Sammy’s pets is a “gray monkey about a foot high, tethered to a little chinaberry tree” (O’Connor 204). Furthermore, he treats his spouse like a slave and only perceives the faults in other people, which is indicative of his patriarchist inclinations. A Good Man is Hard to Find differs from European Gothic since O’Connor’s characteristics are disguised in comic style, which renders them less obvious to the reader. She explores society’s shortcomings on a profound level, entrusting others to individual perceptions and behavior.
Work Cited
O’Connor Flannery. A Good Man Is Hard to Find. Faber Faber. 2019.