The True Meaning of Goodness

The True Meaning of Goodness

In O’Connor’s short story, “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” the term “good” is thrown around. She describes how no person can truly be good wholeheartedly. Even if some people know right from wrong but still choose to do wrong. Goodness as a whole is hard to come about and truly practice it.

In the short story it begins with a family going on a trip to Florida. Most of the family didn’t mind but the grandma. The grandma was the only one nagging about going to Florida. The grandma throughout the story was telling her grandchildren what her life was like back in the day and how everyone was nice to one another and people were treated well. Then she goes ahead and makes fun of a black boy on the side of the road with barely any clothes on. The grandma due to her old age dragged the whole family to what she thought was a house she used to visit as a kid. Little does she know she forgot that it was in Tennessee. This dirt road led the whole family to their death as the Misfit took them out one by one. The grandma professed to have pity on her because she was a “lady”. She wished she wouldn't be killed but ultimately in the end the Misfit killed her because he saw right through her “good”.

O’Connor shows in her story how no one can truly be “good”. The characters in the story may act like they are good but in reality they are not. An example of this would be the grandma because she talks about how people were treated the right way back in her day. “People did right then. ‘Oh look at the cute little pickaninny!’ she said as she pointed to a Negro child standing in the door of a shack”(O’Connor 1). The grandma talks about how children used to respect elders and how everyone “did right then” as she makes fun of the black kid barely wearing any clothes. This is a pure example of hypocrisy because of how the grandma talks about being “good” and the next thing she says