Test Blog: The Grandmother from “A Good Man is Hard to Find”

28 March 2020

Flannery O’Connor’s short story “A Good Man is Hard to Find” portrays myth in plenty of different ways, but as most of my area of study thus far has pertained to the Trickster archetype, that is what I will be focusing on here. Throughout the story, the nameless grandmother gave off major trickster vibes. She is a highly manipulative character, with her first act in the narrative being an attempt to manipulate her son and daughter in law into going to the destination that she wants instead of Florida like they planned.  

She seems incredibly selfish, as well as stuck in the past, as evidenced by her constant racism and insistence that everything from her time is superior to the way it is now, the kids were more well-behaved (ignoring the fact that she’s criticizing her own son’s parenting), the people were more trustworthy, and it was just a better time in general. She’s stuck in a similar mindset of glorifying the ways of the old south that we see in “A Rose for Emily.” Her ideas of what made things and people good is heavily skewed towards upper class white people and is entirely based on appearances. This twisted sense of morality, as well as her apparent selfishness, could be seen as another trickster trait 

Her manipulation and trickery is evident throughout multiple points throughout the story, not just the beginning. When they leave for their trip, she sneaks her cat in the car and keeps him hidden, which causes the chaos later on (chaos being another trickster quality). Perhaps the most obvious manipulation within the story is when she slyly – and dishonestly – gets her grandkids on her side so that they pester their father into going to this old house. Except, as it turns out, the house she was thinking of wasn’t in Georgia at all, but Tennessee, the place she originally wanted to go. Whether she meant it this way or not, this is a trick that she plays on her family and it heavily inconveniences them even without the whole murder thing coming up.  

Then, bad things happen when the cat, Pitty Sing, gets spooked by grandma and latches onto Bailey, who is driving, causing the family to crash. I think there is an argument to be made that the cat is also a trickster of sorts, after all he is the one who causes the chaos and he’s the one who escapes with his life at the end of the story. But I think grandma’s constant and deliberate manipulation throughout the story makes her a strong contender as well. This manipulation doesn’t cease when the family is come across by The Misfit and his cronies.  

The scene that follows showcases both the Grandmother’s manipulative tendencies as well as her skewed sense of what’s right as she insists to the escaped murderer that he must be a good man because he came from good (aka either rich or white or both) people, therefore he would never kill a lady – I guess he can kill her son and grandsons, though? As her family is picked off one by one, she continues to plead for her own life by appealing to the Misfit’s conscience. Unfortunately for grandma, his sense of right and wrong is even more messed up than hers is.  

When her entire family is gone, she offers him one final plea, she calls him her baby and reaches out for him before he shoots her three times in the chest. This moment is interesting mostly because it is open to a variety of interpretations. Did she truly believe in the good in him and offer him forgiveness for his sins despite what he’d taken from her, or is she merely desperately trying to save her own life by making him think that’s the case? Or perhaps the fear has driven her mad and she truly mistakes the Misfit for her son because he’s wearing his shirt? That’s something I don’t think we can know one way or the other. I personally think that she’s still manipulating until her last breathe and it simply backfires on her – because sometimes Tricksters do face consequences, but I could also believe she’s being genuine and changing in her final moments as well. Either way, that sort of moral ambiguity is very trickster-ish, is it not?