A_Good_Man_Is_Hard_to_Find

The road trip of Bailey’s family is a big irony with a lot of symbols along the way and in the stop. Most of which imply the incoming death. The first visible sign is “They passed a large cotton field with five or six graves”. Let us count the members of the Bailey family: the grandmother, Bailey, his wife, and his three children. Six. It perfectly fits the six graves. The brief description of the graves – “fenced in the middle of it (the field), like a small island” - may also be paid attention to as in the end, they are surrounded by the Misfit and his men. A similar symbol is the plantation house with six white columns after they pass Toombsboro. Six again. And even the town’s name “Toombsboro” is related to death. “Six columns” and “Toomsboro” clearly make the scene of a graveyard. However, the most significant symbol on the way is “the dirt road”, which is “hilly” with “sudden washes”, “sharp curves on dangerous embarkments”. This absolutely marks a road towards hell because the Bible quotes that the road to hell is long, twisted and treacherous. Still, when the Baileys stop due to an accident, another series of symbols logically occur. Initially, look at the arrival of the Misfit; he shows up in a “big black battered hearse-like automobile” with “a steady expressionless gaze”, and this description means to portray him as death. While talking to the grandmother, the Misfit “pointed the toe of his shoe into the ground and made a little hole and then covered it up again”, which looks like a burial. In other words, the Misfit’s action of digging and covering a hole, as well as his appearance, strongly announcements that the Bailey family were facing the death so closely. Considering some of the symbols above in another respect, we can also see the author’s faith in Catholic. In the conversation between the grandmother and the Misfit, there are things about Jesus and praying. The grandmother even preaches the gospel to the Misfit in the attempt to revive the humanity deep inside him when she knows that he will kill her. In later descriptions in the story, a cloudless sky is mentioned for times. “Ain't a cloud in the sky”, “Don't see no sun but don't see no cloud neither”, “There was not a cloud in the sky nor any sun”. The clouds represent the grandmother’s shallow faith; and since the Misfit’s arrival, the clouds have not been seen as her faith in God has faded away.