Analysis of Flannery O’Connor’s Short Story A Good Man is Hard to Find by Dwi Budidarma

Setting

The story starts in a beautiful morning where all the family members that consist of a grandmother, a father (Bailey), a mother (children’s mother), a baby boy, eight-year-old boy (John Wesley), and little girl (June Star) spend the early day together in the same room of their house. We may assume it is in the morning even if the narrator does not explicitly mention it because we can look at their daily routine that can tell everything, such as; the grandmother reading the newspaper, the father reading the sport section of his journal, the mother feeding his baby and the kids reading the funny papers. Their house is in Atlanta, Georgia. But the rest of the story is about the journey they make from Atlanta to Florida so technically they are in the middle of going away from Georgia but the narrator never really explain where is the exact location.

“Bailey and the children’s mother and the baby sat in front and they left Atlanta at eight forty-five with the mileage on the car at 55890”

“Let’s go through Georgia fast so we don’t have to look at it much”

They stopping by at The Tower for Barbecued Sandwiches or Red Sammy’s Famous Barbecued for lunch. We can say they stop by for lunch because when they get out from there they, the get to see the white sunlight

“The children ran outside into the white sunlight and looked at the monkey in the lacy chinaberry tree”

“They drove again into the hot afternoon”

The grandmother suddenly remember something, some mysterious house with secret panel in the middle of nowhere which coincidentally located not so far from where they are now and she wanted to see it by telling the children and making them want to see it too so that the father would have no choice rather than give a yes and go for it. Turns out that it is not a smooth journey to get there.

“They turned onto the dirt road and the car raced roughly along in a swirl of pink dust”

Then there is an unstoppable accident some minutes later.

They ended up being in some sort of deep forest predominating by trees.

“Behind the ditch they were sitting in there were more woods, tall and dark and deep”

The encounter with the Misfit and the whole broken heart part of it probably occur in twilight

“Alone with The Misfit, the grandmother found that she had lost her voice, there was not a cloud in the sky nor any sun”

Symbols

“Orange sport section, newspaper, funny papers”

Represents the fresh regular morning routine of every people in common which is sitting together with the love ones in the family room and start the day by reading some news and have some talk over it. Each of one picks their favorite reading.

“Pitty Sing or the cat”

Pitty Sing or the cat of the grandmother might be one of the character with the most influential role in the story. If only the cat was not brought by the grandmother or was not hidden in the basket, the car might not have the accident. The cat may represents the sleeping bomb because once it gets any action it will directly give the fast reaction that leads to something really bad which is the car accident.

“Dirt Road”

Dirt road represents the rough way that should not be entered in the first place because it was not meant to be passing by the car and it is just literally wild sandy area in the woods.

“Tall and dark and deep woods”

The physical appearance of the woods as something tall and dark and deep may not only represent the general truth of the untouched wild woods but also as the sign that the family is going into the dangerous place.

“Woods gaped like a dark open mouth”

The dark open mouth represent the gate of the death that once they get in to that mouth there will be no turning back and they will be immediately swallowed by the death.

“The cloudless sky”

The cloudless sky represents the truth that being openly shown and there is nothing hide the truth that we finally reach the ultimate truth.

“There was not a cloud nor the sun”

No cloud represents the truth we cannot run away from and then no sun represents that there is no hope we can rely on. It is the bitter truth we should face. The death.

“Face smiling up at the cloudless sky”

Smiling on the cloudless sky may represents the willingness of accept every truth that we have been denying from because no other choice left.

Point of view

The story is using the Third Person; Omniscient Narrator point of view in which the narrator knows everything that the character is thinking about and the narrator also give the reader the clear information of what is going on in the story even for the smallest details.

“She had her big black valise that looked like the head of hippopotamus in the corner, and underneath it she was hiding a basket with Pitty Sing, the cat, in it.”

“Her collars and cuffs were white organdy trimmed with lace and at her neckline she had pinned a purple spray of cloth violets containing a sachet. In case of an accident, anyone seeing her dead on the highway would know at once that she was a lady”

“Red Sammy was lying on the bare ground outside The Tower with his under a truck while a gay monkey about a foot high, chained to a small chinaberry tree, chattered nearby.”   

“Inside The Tower was a long dark room with a counter at one end and tables at the other and dancing space in the middle”

“The children began to yell and scream that they wanted to see the house with the secret panel. John Wesley kicked the back of the front seat and June Star hung over her mother’s shoulder and whined desperately into her ear that they never had any fun even on their vacation, that they could never do what they wanted to do”

“"It's not much farther," the grandmother said and just as she said it, a horrible thought came to her. The thought was so embarrassing that she turned red in the face and her eyes dilated and her feet jumped up, upsetting her valise in the corner.”

“The children were thrown to the floor and their mother, clutching the baby, was thrown out the door onto the ground; the old lady was thrown into the front seat. The car turned over once and landed right-side-up in a gulch off the side of the road. Bailey remained in the driver's seat with the cat gray-striped with a broad white face and an orange nose clinging to his neck like a caterpillar”

“There was a pistol shot from the woods, followed closely by another. Then silence. The old lady's head jerked around. She could hear the wind move through the tree tops like a long satisfied insuck of breath. "Bailey Boy!" she called.”

“Alone with The Misfit, the grandmother found that she had lost her voice. There was not a cloud in the sky nor any sun. There was nothing around her but woods.”

“His voice seemed about to crack and the grandmother's head cleared for an instant. She saw the man's face twisted close to her own as if he were going to cry and she murmured, "Why you're one of my babies. You're one of my own children !" She reached out and touched him on the shoulder. The Misfit sprang back as if a snake had bitten him and shot her three times through the chest. Then he put his gun down on the ground and took off his glasses and began to clean them.”