Questions for A Good Man Is Hard To Find, by Flannery OConnor (1955)

1. As you read, please take note of the distinguishing physical, mental, and emotional traits of each character. Keep coming back to this question, just jotting notes about each character as you read, so that by the end of the story you will have written out a complete description of each character. Since you can be sure that Professor Lee will ask you for textual evidence to support each descriptive statement that you make about a character, please jot down the numbers of the pages where you found information. (a) The grandmother: She is an old woman that relies on her son to take care of her. (b) Bailey: A family man that loves his family. (c) The mother (Baileys wife): The mother is a woman that loves her children and husband dearly. (d) The children (June Star and John Wesley): June and Wesley are two average children that play, fight, and interact with each other. (e) The Misfit: A middle aged gentleman who is an evil person and likes to kill people. (f) The Misfits companions, Hiram and Bobby Lee: Hiram and Bobby are bad people that that kill innocent people.

2. Does Flannery OConnor write any of her characters speech in a nonstandard vernacular/dialect? (Yes, she does.) Please find and record some examples below. Then, do some informal Web research and try to determine which vernacular/dialect they are speaking. Is it a social dialect? A regional dialect? What specific terms does your Web research turn up? Please jot down any publication information that you can find on the pages that you look at, so that we can discuss source credibility a bit in our next class. Examples: Aint, yesm, nome, nineteen ought nineteen.

3. Read the section of biographical information about Flannery OConnor that precedes the story itself. (a) Do informal Web research to find out about any terms that you dont knowfor example, Gothic? Whats that? Gothic is of or relating to a style of fiction that emphasizes the grotesque, mysterious, and
desolate.

(b) Note that one of the literary references included in this biographical section is Jonathan Swiftwho, you will recall, is the famous satirist (author of satire) that Professor Lee was talking about in class the other day. Do some informal Web searching for Swifts most famous satire, A Modest Proposal. Its not long. Read it, and jot down your thoughts about it below. My thoughts of this is that it is horrible. It is not right to use children and people like objects.

(c) As you read OConnors story itself, jot down notes about how you see her personal life/belief system playing out through the events of the plot and also the characterization. I see her personal life not playing out to well. I see that her personal life has turmoil and is sad and depressing.

4. Whom do you consider the protagonist in this story, when all is said and done? Remember, the protagonist is the principal person who strives. Who strives the hardest, and against what? The protagonist in the story is the grandmother. The grandmother is the protagonist because she strives to stay safe and keep her family safe as well.