A Good Man Is Hard to Find - Flannery O'Connor

Flannery O'Connor wrote an exquisite short story titled, "A Good Man Is Hard to Find." This story is about a family going on a road trip for vacation. This family included a husband and wife, their three children and the children's grandmother. In the beginning of the story there was some mentioning of an escape convict by the name of The Misfit. The grandmother read about the Misfit's escape in the newspaper. The family was in a car accident and ended up in a ditch. The Misfit, along with two other characters, was actually connected with the family toward the middle of the story after the accident. However, this was not a good encounter. The Misfit and his gang killed all six members of the family. Flannery O'Connor uses many different foreshadowing techniques to suggest what will happen to the family in the end.

A good indication of what was going to happen to the family was after the car accident. Even though it was a possibility that they could have been helped by the vehicle the grandmother flagged down, the way the vehicle approached the incident meant that help was unlikely. O'Connor wrote, "they saw a car some distance…coming slowly as if the occupants were watching them…the car continued to come on slowly, disappeared around a bend and appeared again, moving even slower" (O'Connor, 1256). Think for a minute. If you saw a family with young children who appeared to have just been in a car wreck, would you approach them slowly or rush to help them? Most people would either rush to the aid of children in distress or act as if they never saw them. The occupants of this vehicle were up to no good. It was as if they were plotting on their prey.

The appearance and attitude of strangers say a million words. The characters in the car inflicted intimidation rather than sympathy for the family. O'Connor wrote, "He moved around on the right side of them and started staring…he came around