The analysis in the main character the grandmother

In the account “A Very good Man Is not easy to Find” written by Flannery O’Connor, the grandmother is the central persona who develops and improvements with the story develops, she’s a round and energetic character. Initially, she appears to be an unpleasant, contemptible and selfish old lady who is suspicious about her religion. But also in the end, when “her head cleared for an instant, ” the grandmother becomes a real believer of God. And she is heading straight to heaven for her final Christ-like act of love as soon as before she dies.

That is certainly, she movements from religious blindness to grace. And that is the method which the author uses to relate her to the theme of the story.

Grandmother prior to moment of grace

First of all, she is selfish and annoying. When her family prepares to go on holiday in Florida, she persuades them to go to east Tn, where this lady has relatives. Not able to convince these people, she uses the news that a psychopathic great who cell phone calls himself The Misfit is heading toward Florida as an excuse to alter her child Bailey’s mind.

The grandmother is very self-centered that she just imposes her wish about those people about her. As well, her counter and outdated belief make her an upsetting character. Your woman always claims to be a female and believes much of wealth and social status. If they set out to Fl, she dresses in her best clothing and an ostentatious loath lest nobody can recognize her as a refined lady if perhaps she dead in an car accident along the highway. “The granny had over a navy blue straw sailor head wear with a few white violets on the brim and a navy blue costume with a small white department of transportation in the print out. Her collars and cuffs were white colored organdy trimmed with ribbons and at her neckline she had pinned a purple spray of cloth violets made up of a ravage. “

From her perspective of identification, I can notice that she identifies people externally, by garments. And she tells her grandchildren, David Wesley and June Legend, that “she would have performed well to marry Mr. Teagarden because he was a gentle man together bought Skol stock in order to first came out and that he acquired died just one or two years ago, a really wealthy gentleman. ” Now, the grandma appears to be over of aged South who also holds the outdated idea of hierarchy. She thinks only a man who is abundant can drive with a lady, which is a stereotypically southern aristocratic prejudice. In addition, she is a racist and opinionated. “Oh, look at the cute little pickaninny! ” your woman said… “Wouldn’t he help to make a picture right now? ” “He didn’t possess any britches on, ” June Legend said. “He probably don’t have any, ” the grandmother explained. “Little niggers in the country you do not have things like all of us do. ” Her affection for the South and the days of slavery are still affecting her.

In accordance to her understanding, black persons, especially kids are supposed to become poor. That they belong to the bottom class of the society so they really are inferior to her, who may be a lady through the upper class. She considers herself morally better than others by the virtue of her like a “lady”, and she openly and frequently makes judgment about others. In lunchtime, they will stop at Crimson Sammy’s, a barbecue eatery, where the grandma laments that “people will not be nice like they utilized to be”. Through the conversation with Red Sammy, the grandma, narrow-minded and opinionated, regularly assures himself that she’s a lady, a fantastic Christian, and a good judge of character. She keeps that Reddish Sammy, a bossy loudmouth, is a “good man” which Europe “was entirely to blame for the way things were at this point. ” The part that grandma is self-centered, vain, conceited and judgmental only makes her unpleasant for me, but when she gets her friends and family hurt, the girl turns out to be contemptible.

After they keep the roadhouse, her obstinacy about going to Tennessee blinds her sense of direction, she manipulates her boy into producing a detour to see a vintage plantation she once visited as a woman. First, she arouses the kids’ interest to find a home with secret panel, and after that she depicts the tour to the plantation “would be very educational for them”. She is well aware that any father would not reject some thing labeled “educational”, so the girl manipulates them to get what she would like. And this potential clients them to an extremely dangerous head to, which they have an accident later because the kitten Pitty Sing she selfishly sneaks out leaps onto Bailey and he manages to lose control of the auto on the dirt road. In such horrible situation, everything that she likes you is to avoid the responsibility, therefore she pretends to be harmed. Although she’s an old female, this actions are really out of series. No one should put their particular family in danger and find themselves an excuse to escape from the responsibility. Her selfishness is more apparent when the complete family happen to be confronting with the Misfit, a serial killer. Technically, is it doesn’t grandmother recognizing the identity of the Misfit that gets all her family slain. However , the girl never plead with the Misfit to free her friends and family, she simply pleads on her own lifestyle.

In her conversation with the Misfit, she tells him, “If you would pray…Jesus would help you. ” The girl calls about “Jesus” several times, although I am not sure in the event she means “Jesus may help you” or perhaps “she might be cursing” since she begs the Misfit “not to shoot a woman. ” Plus, for one second just before your woman dies, the old lady doubts Jesus, at least feels abandoned: “Maybe this individual didn’t raise the dead”. Costly understandable reaction, after the large shock she gets undergone: the girl knows that her family continues to be massacred. Here, her faith has been examined here. Therefore , I can simply assume that the grandmother is a superficial Christian who scepticizes her perception sometimes.

Grandmother’s change

Yet , in the end, when “her brain cleared to get an instant, ” the grandmother has a instant of perception. The moment the girl reaches to be able to the Misfit and reports “You’re one of my own children”, she uncovers and offers towards the Misfit her compassionate love, she encounters what O’Connor refers to as her “moment of grace, ” a time when she recognizes that your woman shares a lot of trait together with the Misfit in spite of their obvious differences. She knows the girl with far from a fantastic person, she’s flawed as the Misfit. She abandons the ethical high earth she had held and accepts the regular humanity. Here is her religious epiphany. By embracing as soon as of elegance, she becomes a devout Christian, the lady believing in Jesus and is also ready to “thow away anything and comply with Him”.

The web link between the grandmother and the motif

The link involving the grandmother as well as the theme lies in the moment your woman embraces as soon as of sophistication. The grandmother travels from the recognition only of her own selfish desires to self-recognition of their self in other through suffering. That is, she movements from spiritual blindness to grace. O’Connor suggests that the grandmother has brought grace seeing that Jesus “thrown everything away balance” by simply dying over a cross Him self. Thus, struggling is a necessary part of obtaining grace, with the help of the Misfit, the grandmother has made this voyage of suffering, a trip from spiritual blindness and selfishness to suffering, and lastly grace. This kind of passage witnesses the alter of a self-centered, arrogant old woman. Despite the fact that she has all of these weaknesses in the beginning, she turns into the “good man” when she embracing the moment of grace. Physical violence and battling are the necessary ingredients to help her change. In fact , both the connection with the grandmother reveals that good “is hard to find”.

References:

1 A great Man Is not easy to Find (short story), coming from Wikipedia

2 SparkNotes: A good guy is hard to look for, Analysis of Major Personas 3 高恩普的日志，读书笔记-A good guy is hard to find，来自人人网 some 蓝色轻雨水印，PPT – A good guy is hard to find，来自百度文库

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