A Good Man

Character Analysis of The Grandmother

In the short story, “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” by Flannery O’Connor, the grandmother serves as a central character. O'Connor presents her as being a prim and proper lady outfitted in a dress, hat, and even white cotton gloves for a road trip to Florida. However, if you search deeper into her character it is quickly realized that she is a manipulating, deceiving, self-serving woman who lives in the past. She does not value her life as it is, but glorifies what it was like long ago because nowadays “people are certainly not nice like they used to be” (O’Conner 496). This is a woman who will and does do whatever it takes in an attempt to get what she wants and she doesn't let anyone else's feelings stand in her way.

The grandmother portrays a very demanding and manipulating personality. She attempts to justify this by convincing not only her family but also herself that her way is not only the best way, but also the only way. The grandmother is determined to change her family's vacation destination from Florida to Tennessee so she can visit some of her friends. Reading that there is a convicted killer on the loose and headed to Florida, the grandmother attempts to tug at her son’s heartstrings by saying "I wouldn’t take my children in any direction with a criminal like that aloose in it. I couldn’t answer to my conscience if I did” (O’Conner 493). In his literary criticism, “One of My Babies: The Misfit and the Grandmother,” Stephen Bandy points out that the grandmother is in fact “Profoundly dishonest, she stops at nothing to have her way” (Bandy). There is nothing off limits to this woman, not even the lives of her grandchildren, if it means she gets her way. The grandmother then decides that she will go along after all, but she is already plotting to work her own agenda into the trip.

The grandmother proves she is very deceitful on numerous occasions throughout the story. She manages to sneak the cat in the car with...