A_Good_Man_Is_Hard_to_Find

Flannery O' Connor’s short story, “A Good Man is Hard to Find”, had many elements. One of the most prominent elements in the story was foreshadowing. The warning of the Misfit in the beginning of the story, the trip to Red Sammy’s store, and the Misfits arrival all foreshadowed what was to be certain doom. The grandmother communicated the warning of the Misfit, but her activities were various signs of foreshadowing of the end approaching. The grandmother warned about the Misfit in the first paragraph of the story: "Here this fellow calls himself the Misfit is loose from the federal pen and headed toward Florida and you read here what it says he did to these people.” This was the first sign of an obvious foreshadowing element at the start of the story which was ignored by everybody, even by the messenger herself. Next, the place where the family was traveling through had elements which were predicting the doom foretold in the story. It is said that the family, "... passed a large cotton field with five or six graves fenced in the middle of it, like a small island." There were five adults in the car and one baby, which was a total number of six people. There were about six graves fenced, which was a factor indicating foreshadowing. And when John Wesley asked about where the plantation was, the grandmother replied, "Gone With the Wind," which was foretelling their demise. Red Sammy also narrated about "Two fellers come in here last week" in an "old beat up car." These people were the Misfit's goons, and they were offered free gasoline from Red Sammy's store, probably because of his fear that he was dealing with notorious killers. Red Sammy's wife also gave a warning by saying, "I wouldn't be a bit surprised if he didn't attack this place right here." This was a self-explanatory caution signal give by the store owners which was ignored. The family was in a town named as "Toombsboro," which name itself was a sign of foreshadowing. When the Misfit arrived with his gang, he gave a few hints to his victims indicating their brutal death. The Misfit arrived in a vehicle described as ."...a big black battered hearse-like automobile." The hearse, which is a vehicle carrying the dead, was the Misfit's vehicle which conveyed the message that he was going to kill the family. Another interesting imagery was when the grandmother asked the Misfit, "'What did you do to get sent to the penitentiary that first time"'" His answer further foreshadowed the death of the family. He said, "'Turn to the right, it was a wall. Turn to the left, it was a wall. Look up it was a ceiling; look down it was a floor'" . This description, although used for a jail cell, it could also apply to a tight grave. The deceased family would be soon in a rather similar position as he was. The Misfit had done away with all the members of the family except for the grandmother, whom he had decided to finish last. The grandmother was forcing the Misfit to pray and told him that he had "'...good blood'" and that Jesus would help him. However, the Misfit replied: "'Yes'm, it was the same case with Him [Jesus] as with me except He hadn't committed any crime and they could prove I had committed one.'" In this statement, the Misfit was talking about his experience of how he was arrested and punished for something he claimed that he did not do. But his statement was also portraying an image that he was the judge and executioner of Jesus' case in which Jesus can be considered as the grandmother. The grandmother did not do anything wrong, but still she had to suffer death just like Jesus did. His statement was a statement with a hidden sense of foreshadowing concerning the grandmother's murder. The grandmother begged the Misfit for mercy and told him, "'I'll give you all the money I've got!'" His reply was, "'There never was a body that give the undertaker a tip,'" which was his way of foreshadowing her near death. Thus, Flannery O'Connor used strong imagery to provide foreshadowing to her readers of the inevitable ending of her "A Good Man Is Hard to Find." She first gave her readers a taste of the ending by mentioning the behavior and activities of the characters and also by describing the place of the family's last place of visit on earth, which built her readers' curiosity. Her foreshadowing images are both strong and obscure so as not to spoil the surprising ending of the story.