O’Connor’s ability to balance brutality with comedy, blend humor with tragic occurrences, and seriousness with absurdity, captivates the readers’ attention. The story’s primary message is the worth of happiness and the illogicality of life. “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” is a good demonstration of complex human nature and the ridiculousness of existence, in which evil and good coexist. The absurdity is the central theme in Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man is Hard to Find.”
Essentially, “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” addresses a fundamental theme; the philosophical concept of absurdity serves as the story’s vital concept. According to Zhao (2017), absurdity is extremely prominent owing to the protagonists, storyline, and various enigmatic facts or imagery that O’Connor expounds on throughout the text. The grandmother, the story’s protagonist, is a brilliant illustration of absurdity and her character is exquisitely detailed. O’Connor (1977) portrays a naive old woman who enjoys giving lessons to her children; for instance, “in my time children were more respectful of their native states” (p. 5). Despite this, she knows how to manipulate and lies to family members, performing hasty acts without regard for the repercussions. Additionally, the grandmother is more concerned with her survival than her family. She says that ‘the Misfit’ is a good person and begs him before her death: “I know you wouldn’t shoot a lady!” and tries to become spiritualized by crying out to Jesus Christ (O’Connor, 1977, p. 15). The protagonist poses herself as a wise, graceful, and well-educated woman, but in reality, she a hypocritical, authoritarian, and self-centered.
Even though the grandmother is well aware that her son, Bailey, is opposed to transporting the cat to the motel, she surreptitiously conceals the cat in the car, making an illogical explanation for herself. She feels the cat will miss her terribly, and “he might brush against one of the gas burners” and inadvertently suffocate himself to death (O’Connor, 1977, p. 4). The ridiculousness is that the grandma rationally insists on going to Tennessee because she does not want to go to Florida. Nevertheless, the grandmother says to Bailey that she wants to avoid seeing the criminal ‘The Misfit’ and argues that she would never “take my children in any direction with a criminal” (O’Connor, 1977, p. 3). Her choice to take the cat influences the murder of the family. Ultimately, the cat is the cause of the turnover and the family’s interaction with ‘the Misfit.’
The antagonist is called ‘the Misfit,’ a mystery murderer with a good background. The absurdity is demonstrated in him; ‘The Misfit’ appears to be a killer coming from the “finest people in the world” (O’Connor, 1977, p. 11). The man tells the grandmother, “God never made a finer woman than my mother,” and adds that his father’s heart was the kindest (O’Connor, 1977, p. 11). He attempted to achieve in life by singing gospel, serving in the army, being married twice, and working hard, but all of his efforts were futile, leading him to become a criminal and killer. According to ‘The Misfit,’ children make him anxious, and brutality helps him comprehend the essence of life and existence. Furthermore, it is for this reason that he murders the family without remorse or mercy.
The disparity between good and evil principles also indicates the story’s ridiculousness. ‘The Misfit,’ for instance, apologizes for not wearing a shirt in the presence of women: “I’m sorry I don’t have on a shirt before you ladies” (O’Connor, 1977, p. 13). At the very same time, he politely requests the children’s mother to join his friends in the forest to be murdered. ‘The Misfit’ asks the mother and her daughter “to step off yonder with Bobby Lee and Hiram” to rejoin Bailey (O’Connor, 1977, p. 14). Thus, through the figure of ‘the Misfit,’ O’Connor transmits her profound real-life experience; the writer focuses on how oblivious individuals seem about their bizarre situations in modern civic society.
To conclude, absurdity is the central theme in Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man is Hard to Find.” The writer employs this topic to deliver to readers the essential idea that there is no happiness while evil roam society, like ‘the Misfit,’ and kills people for no reason. Using the family as an image, O’Connor proves there can be no joy without compassion, respect, and care for one another. Furthermore, “A Good Man is Hard to Find” is an excellent example of complicated human nature, personality dualism, and the folly of life in which evil and good coexist.
References
O’Connor, F. (1977). A good man is hard to find and other stories. Mariner Books.
Zhao, Y. (2017). The absurd theme in “A Good Man is Hard to Find”. 2017 3rd International Conference on Economy, Management and Education Technology (ICEMET 2017). Web.