A Good Man is Hard to Find Analysis

"Toomsboro" is mentioned (45) as the town the family passes right when the grandmother wakes up to remember the old plantation that isn't really there. In other words, "Toomsboro" is mentioned righ...

You can basically Googlemap this story.We know that the family begins in Atlanta (or the Atlanta suburbs) and that they travel a few hours south to the town of Toombsboro, where the grandma convinc...

The story's told in the third person, and it centers singularly on the grandmother. She's the character we're told the most about, by far. She's also the only character whose point of view we can a...

Southern Gothic combines many of the elements of Gothic fiction with distinctively Southern overtones. Think moldering old mansions...in Mississippi. (Want to know more? We have a whole Lit Crit gu...

Many readers are struck by the apparent cynicism of O'Connor's writing. As a narrator, she rarely seems sympathetic to the characters of her story. On the contrary, she seems more interested in bri...

O'Connor once said she could only write one type of sentence (source: The Habit of Being, p. 69). And there's a bit of truth to that. Many of her sentences are bare bones consisting of: subject, ve...

As wildly original as this story is, O'Connor didn't invent the title "A Good Man is Hard to Find." It's actually the title lyric of a song composed and performed by Eddie Green back during the tim...

Last WordsThe big question about the ending—and the one that's kept critics arguing with each other ever since the story was published—has to do with the fact that the grandmother calls The Mis...

There's a criminal on the loose. But let's go on a road trip anyway.In the first paragraph, we get the essential information that a murderer called The Misfit is on the loose. We suspect that he's...

There's a criminal on the loose.In this stage, the protagonist falls under the shadow of a "dark power," and the first paragraph of the story fits the bill nicely. The grandmother brings up The M...

The grandmother warns that The Misfit is on the loose, but the family chooses to head towards Florida anyway. They set off and stop for lunch at Red Sammy's. The grandmother remembers there's an ol...

Flannery O'Connor was, as she put it, an "innocent" speller. She preferred to spell words as they sounded to her, usually heavily inflected with Southern dialect. You'll find just as many "oncets"...

There are many, many reasons you wouldn't want an eight-year-old to read this story, but sex isn't one of them.

Jesus (118, 128, 129, 131, 134-136) John Wesley (Bailey's son is named John Wesley; John Wesley was the founder of the Methodist Church) "A Good Man is Hard to Find" (Eddie Green song) (Title, 43)...