Character Analysis of Abner Snopes and the Grandmother

Character Analysis of Abner Snopes and the Grandmother

Abner Snopes of “Barn Burning” and the grandmother of “A Good Man is Hard to Find” are characters that are easy to dislike because of their selfishness, prideful attitudes, and many other character flaws. Even though she remains unnamed, the grandmother is a character that demands attention and that readers love to hate. She refers to herself as a picturesque southern lady and as a woman of God, but the grandmother reveals her true colors in O’Conner’s short story. Through the ups and downs of the story, the grandmother’s true characteristics are revealed through her obsession with being a “lady”, her habit of telling lies, and using manipulative behavior. Abner Snopes is a bitter man full of hatred towards anyone whose life is better off than his. He is stuck as a tenant farmer for the rest of his life and his jealousy of the people in “the big house” leads him down a path of literal destruction.

The grandmother takes extreme pride in being a traditional southern lady. Unfortunately, this puts her in a self-appointed position to judge others like her grandchildren’s mother who was “a young woman in slacks, whose face was broad and innocent as a cabbage.” The grandmother obviously doesn’t think too highly of the children’s mother for wearing slacks and having a cabbage face. Interestingly, after the wreck that the family had, the grandmother doesn’t pay any mind to the mother’s suffering for “she only had a cut down her face and a broken shoulder.” Meanwhile the grandmother is hoping to be injured to avoid her son’s wrath of anger at her for causing the accident. Even when talking to her soon-to-be murderer she exclaims, “I know you wouldn’t shoot a lady!” Apparently, being a lady was a virtue the grandmother believed could save her from death.

The conscience of the grandmother never seems to be pricked when she lies and manipulates. She purposefully entices the children in order to get what she wants. A perfect example of this is when she tells the children that there is a house with a secret panel that they could all go see. She