1. Consider how you want to incorporate the ideas and arguments from the outside source you located for your Week 5 scholarly article discussion. Include at least one quotation from the source in your final draft. Be sure to use APA style to cite it appropriately in the body of the essay and in the references section.
2. Consider the feedback you received on your rough draft from your instructor, peers, and Smarthinking (if submitted for review), and determine what changes you want to make. Do you need a more engaging opener or a stronger thesis? Do you need to reinforce your arguments and add more supporting evidence? Do you have areas to develop or clarify? Are you satisfied with your conclusion?
3. Once you have revised the essay, review it for editing issues. Run the spell checker and grammar checker in Word, and then proofread, looking for typos the checkers might have missed. Read it out loud to listen for awkward places and fine tune the flow.
4. Make sure you have applied APA rules of style to source citations as well as the overall formatting of your essay. 

Analysis of ‘A Good Man Is Hard to Find

Analysis of ‘A Good Man Is Hard to Find’

‘A Good Man Is Hard to Find’ is a short story first published in 1953 that illustrates the several themes and techniques that characterize the story of O’Connor. The story begins when the grandmother tries to convince Bailey, her son and his wife that they should go for a vacation in east Tennessee instead of Florida because there is an escaped convict in Florida. This introduction sets the pace of the article, coupled with the headline and increases the unknown expectations of the readers while immersing themselves into the story. In this paper, there is a comprehensive analysis of the novel by examining and analyzing the characters, the themes, the symbols and imageries used therein.

Characters

O’Connor’s character treatment in this story is a reinforcement of her view of man as a creature that has fallen. This is because the story depicts the destruction of hat is initially thought to be a normal family by three convicts that have escaped prison. For instance, the grandmother is portrayed as an irksome woman who lives with her son Bailey and his family. While travelling to Florida, she insists that they visit an old house she has some memories of and this idea causes an accident and the eventual murder of everyone in the group. She is also portrayed as a confused person because the house she suggested for a visit was actually in Tennessee and not in Florida.

The misfit is another scary character in the novel that has no good side on himself. He is the wanted convict who just escaped prison only to stumble upon the crashed car in the woods. O’Connor portrays Misfit as a person that lives by a moral code that involves remorselessness and murder. He is a man who is skeptical about religion because he keeps wondering if Jesus really raised the dead to life and thus he fully invests his character on meanness as a way of providing a meaning to his life. Therefore, this is the most dreaded murder and dangerous man that no one can ever wish to meet.

Bailey is portrayed as the frazzled head of the family. Bailey appears to love his mother and the entire family but the nagging behavior of his mother sometimes gets the best of him. He is strict to the point that he turns down his mother’s request of visiting east Tennessee and directs his family to Florida even when he has been warned that there is a deadly criminal on the loose in the state of Florida. This is because of the frustration that the family is giving him, the stubborn children and the stubborn mother. He hastily gives in to the demands of both the grandmother and her grandson to visit the old house in the plantation, where the car gets an accident.

Themes

One of the most apparent themes in this novel is the definition of goodness. The definition of the meaning of good by the grandmother is symbolized by her coordinated and proper outfit. In fact, the grandmother is specifically concerned about her outward appearance above anything else. She is not even worried about her death or her family’s death but rather the opinions of strangers about her. Even in the event of danger in the face of the murderous Misfit, grandmother continues to cling on the superficial definition of goodness and entreats him not to shoot a lady, which assumes that shooting a person is just a question of etiquette. In this regard, the theme of what is good appears to be more materialistic as per the view of the grandmother unlike the behavioral and emotional intelligence. In fact, according to Gailey (48), in the end, the grandmother insists that Misfit is a good man yet he is the very man who has just murdered her entire family. This sparks in the question as to whether being a good man depends on the internal character of a person or the external actions of a person.

There is also a theme of violence and grace. Just before the story ends, Misfit tells the grandmother that she would have been a good woman if at every minute of her life there was someone ready to shoot. This does not necessarily mean that O’Connor believes in violence making us better people, but the message of the book is clear: being exposed to violence changes us completely. There is a moment of Grace for Grandma because the materialistic things that she has been clinging on as important were falling apart in the face of the violence and she had to scramble and find any relevant thing to replace them. The time Misfit was about to shoot her was her moment of grace, her only chance of divine redemption.

Symbolism

Symbolism has been applied in this novel in several occasions. When the family was leaving the Tower, the children were amused by the grey monkey that initially took their attention upon their arrival. According to Murphy Jr (29), members of the Ape family have been used in Christian art for a long time to symbolize malice, sin, lust and cunning. Apes have also been used to symbolize the slothful soul of human beings and their greed, blindness, and sinfulness in Christian religion. There is also an element of symbolism just after Grandmother has been short. The killers returned from the woods and find grandmother sitting in a paddle of blood while her legs crossed and her face smiling while facing the cloudless sky. According to Murphy Jr (30) the smiling face of grandma symbolizes victory over the grotesque where sublime is passed by the reception of grace in the act of love.

Imagery

There are several instances of imagery in O’Connor’s novel ‘A Good Man Is Hard to Find’. Grandmother is the first character to indicate imagery in the novel. When she hears that Bailey wants to take his family for a vacation in Florida, she declines and instead suggests that they go to east Tennessee. In fact, she issues a warning that there is a deadly convict on the loose and even goes ahead to ask Bailey what he would do if he met the convict face to face while in Florida. This was actually a foreshadowing of what would exactly happen because they ended up in the path of the deadliest and remorseless convict in Florida, a place that grandma was against visiting in the first place (Gailey (48). When the family finally meets Misfit, he arrives in a hearse-like vehicle, which is commonly used to move coffins and dead bodies. This was an imagery that was foreshadowing death to those that met this convict and they truly faced death after meeting him.

Setting

The story takes place mostly on and around the country roads in the South of the United States. The family’s initial residence is Atlanta and it was travelling through Georgia towards their vocational destination, Florida. They make a stop at a place called The Tower to grab some barbecue sandwiches where the owners are Red Sammy and his wife. These are more realistic settings fitted in a more likely fiction story (Gailey (48). The family does not even reach its destination in Florida because their lives are cut short by the deadly murderer on the loose, Misfit.

Works cited

Gailey, Christine Ward. “A good man is hard to find: overseas migration and the decentered family in the Tongan Islands.” Critique of Anthropology 12.1 (1992): 47-74.

Murphy Jr, Russell D. “A good man is hard to find: Marriage as an institution.” Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization 47.1 (2002): 27-53.

O’Connor,F. (1955). A Good Man is Hard to Find. In L.G. Kirszner & S.R. Mandell (Eds.), Compact Literature: Reading, Reacting, Writing [VitalSource digital version] (pp. 367-378). Boston: Cengage.

Use the tips below for the new paper:

Use a short version of the title and give the page number in the running head.

The cover sheet should include a unique title that reflects the story and your focus for the essay. Add your specific title to page two.

Some elements are missing from the cover sheet.

Remove the subheadings (character, theme, symbolism, imagery, etc.) in the essay. Do not use bold anywhere in the essay.

Remove Works Cited and use References. Place it at the top of the final page. The rough draft should not have any outside sources. At this point, it should just be the story you are analyzing.

The introduction should begin with an engaging opener, such as a quotation or question. Give the topic and mention the story’s title and author in the introductory paragraph. End with a clear thesis.

You cannot do all the literary elements in your argument. Choose one for the final draft, and explain how it is used in the story. This is very important!

The thesis statement should give your argumentative stance on a literary element (such as character, theme, imagery, or symbolism) and how or why the author used it in the story. A thesis cannot be a fact (because it is your opinion). It should be a stance with which some people may disagree.

Do not refer to writing an essay or completing an assignment. Avoid writing things like “the story I chose is” or “in this essay, I will talk about….”

You must give quotations from the story and in-text citations. Most paragraphs should have at least two pieces of evidence, including short quotations. Add analysis to explain every quotation and example, and clarify why you are including this evidence.

For in-text citations, give the author’s last name, year of publication, and page number (with a p.). The period goes after the citation’s end parentheses.

For the final reference, center References on a new page. Use a hanging indent on the second and following lines.

Proofread the essay carefully. Read it out loud to listen for errors. Consider submitting the draft to Smarthinking for a free review and extra feedback.

Running head: A GOOD MAN IS HARD TO FIND 1

A GOOD MAN IS HARD TO FIND 2

A Good Man is Hard to Find

Student Name:

Institutional Affiliation:

Date:

Flint, T. P. (2018). On the Significance of Civil War References in Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man is Hard to Find.” Renascence, 70(2), 119-128.

In this article, Flint raises concerns that most of the authors have focused in writing about the violence undertone that is present throughout the short story “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” that was authored by Flannery O’Connor while saying little if any concerning the specific references within the narrative to the Civil War. Flint points out that the references to the Civil War within the story can be considered to function to highlight questions regarding guilt, evil, as well as, a punishment which come to the fore, particularly within the closing scene that features the grandmother together with The Misfit. Flint is quick to point out that even though it would turn out as specious to make the implication that the connections made to the Civil War provide the key to comprehending O’Connor’s story, recognition of their presence can affect a reader’s appreciation of the narrative.

Flint goes on further to argue the manner in which the connections to the Civil war within the story augment the case for asserting that part of the main morals within the story happens to be the difficulty of people to discern what is required to have justice. The author goes on further to outline and expound on the four references to the Civil War, which occur within the story. In overall, it can be argued that in Flint’s view, the O’Connor’s story tends to make the suggestion that attempting to establish the appropriateness of the evils that people encounter can rightly be considered as an extra manifestation of the pride which precipitated the human’s original fall. In that respect, Flint proposes that such matters should at best be left to God’s judgment, but not to us, humans.

It is outright that Flint’s article makes one gain a better understanding about O’Connor’s story, “A Good Man is Hard to Find.” By directing focus on the references made to the Civil War within the story, a reader gets to learn much about the said story within a unique perspective. Besides, the references have been articulately used to reinforce some of the major themes of O’Connor’s story, which are violence and death. Flint’s review of O’Connor’s story will enable me to carry out better analysis of the central themes within the story in my analytical essay. There are also great ideas that can be obtained from Flint’s review that I will incorporate within the analytical essay.