A good man is hard to find
Write an essay from the attached short story \" A good man is hard to find\". Topic: choose a character of grandmother from the story.WRITE AN ESSAY ON THE TOPIC THAT GRANDMOTHER IS A FLAT CHARACTER WHO DOES NOT SHOWS ANY CHANGE THROUGHOUT THE STORY.GIVE THREE POINT THAT SUPPORT THAT GRANDMOTHER REMAIN SELFISH, TALKATIVE AND MANIPULATOR THROUGHOUT THE STORY. I also attached essay format,so please follow that format in writing essay.
A Good Man is Hard to Find (1953)
THE GRANDMOTHER didn't want to go to Florida. She wanted to visit some of her connections in east Tennessee and she was seizing at every chance to change Bailey's mind. Bailey was the son she lived with, her only boy. He was sitting on the edge of his chair at the table, bent over the orange sports section of the Journal. "Now look here, Bailey," she said, "see here, read this," and she stood with one hand on her thin hip and the other rattling the newspaper at his bald head. "Here this fellow that calls himself The Misfit is aloose from the Federal Pen and headed toward Florida and you read here what it says he did to these people. Just you read it. I wouldn't take my children in any direction with a criminal like that aloose in it. I couldn't answer to my conscience if I did."
Bailey didn't look up from his reading so she wheeled around then and faced the children's mother, a young woman in slacks, whose face was as broad and innocent as a cabbage and was tied around with a green head-kerchief that had two points on the top like a rabbit's ears. She was sitting on the sofa, feeding the baby his apricots out of a jar. "The children have been to Florida before," the old lady said. "You all ought to take them somewhere else for a change so they would see different parts of the world and be broad. They never have been to east Tennessee."
The children's mother didn't seem to hear her but the eight-year old boy, John Wesley, a stocky child with glasses, said, "If you don't want to go to Florida, why dontcha stay at home?" He and the little girl, June Star, were reading the funny papers on the floor.
"She wouldn't stay at home to be queen for a day," June Star said without raising her yellow head.
"Yes and what would you do if this fellow, The Misfit, caught you?" the grandmother asked.
"I'd smack his face," John Wesley said.
"She wouldn't stay at home for a million bucks," June Star said. "Afraid she'd miss something. She has to go everywhere we go."
"All right, Miss," the grandmother said. "Just remember that the next time you want me to curl your hair."
June Star said her hair was naturally curly.
The next morning the grandmother was the first one in the car, ready to go. She had her big black valise that looked like the head of a hippopotamus in one corner, and underneath it she was hiding a basket with Pitty Sing, the cat, in it. She didn't intend for the cat to be left alone in the house for three days because he would miss her too much and she was afraid he might brush against one of the gas burners and accidentally asphyxiate himself. Her son, Bailey, didn't like to arrive at a motel with a cat.
She sat in the middle of the back seat with John Wesley and June Star on either side of her. 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. The grandmother wrote this down because she thought it would be interesting to say how many miles they had been when they got back. It took them twenty minutes to reach the outskirts of the citv.
The old lady settled herself comfortably, removing her white cotton gloves and putting them up with her purse on the shelf in front of the back window. The children's mother still had on slacks and still had her head tied up in a green kerchief, but the grandmother had on a navy blue straw sailor hat with a bunch of white violets on the brim and a navy blue dress with a small white dot in the print. 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.
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Introduction
Written by Flannery O' Connor, A Good Man is Hard to Find is a story that revolves around a family that does not seem to agree on any issue. The antagonist in the story is the grandmother and she appears to control almost every turn of events. She is the main reason why they cannot agree on anything. She is a selfish person who will go to any extent to satisfy her desires. This discussion takes a critical look at the character of the grandmother. The aim is to prove that she remains pretty flat throughout the story and does not change even when that seems to be the case.
Selfish and Judgmental
One of the traits of the grandmother that replicates itself all through the story is selfishness. The woman is always thinking about herself at the expense and exclusion of all others. When her only son Baileys suggests that they go to Florida for vacation, she suggests Tennessee. She even goes ahead to justify why they should go to Tennessee citing the issue of the serial killer. Deep down however as the reader will discover later in the book, her concern was not the issue of the killer (O' Connor, p. 45). She just wanted to go to Tennessee because that was her choice.
Manipulator
Due to her selfish nature, the grandmother is very manipulative. She manipulates people to fit into her plans so that she can achieve her desires. At the beginning of the story, the plan is to go to Florida for vacation. However, since she wants to go to Tennessee, she comes up with a story intended to manipulate Baileys. This is so that he can agree to change the vacation destination...