Will the real Misfit please ....stand?

This story is chock full of suggestive symbolic details, everything from the  grandmother's white gloves to what she "sees" (or doesn't) in the final scene and everything in between; there is some significant detail at almost every "turn" (pun intended, as you will see)

This story is rich in detail, but don' t let the entertaining narrative distract you from the deeper story being told by the patterns of interlocking details---note how the grandmother's delusional, romanticized/fantasized, self-contradictory world view/value system is undermined in the story, esp after her encounter with the Misfit, and her desperate attempts to disavow what the Misfit represents to evade the void beneath....

Also, caution: avoid reading this as a story of "good" v "evil," since the deeper theme of the story deconstructs such human-invented values systems.  The GM (grandmother) certainly can be seen as misguided, but not "evil," the family as dysfunctional, as most families are, but again not in any way "deserving" what happens to them--the story calls into question all such rationalizations. As for the Misfit, he certainly should not be characterized as an agent of retribution; he "fits" into no concept of good or evil (note the ironies of his actually "fitting" the GM's image of a "good man") and is simply a force of nature--a representative of the brute reality that has no place in such binary world view/value systems; he slips between/through such categories (note the autobiographical summary of what he's been/done in his life, which stops short of his current "occupation"). Actually, nothing and no one "fits" into such neat moral categories in the story--no such comfort is offered in the final scenes. As I say below, note who/what is left standing (and what else lives ) in the end... well, there are no heroes in the story, and, unfortunately, as the Misfit might say, there ain't no vill'ins, neither...

From previous blogs on this story, the one second from the bottom of the list under "Blogs from Previous Classes" (third set up from bottom: it is subtitled "The Lesson": scroll down to the story, then click "comments" and scroll up or down to find mine):

Yes, all these ironies are interesting, but, to a great extent, this is a story about values and world views--belief systems that sustain us, and how those may often be illusions--if not self-delusional. Consider the grandmother as representing a kind of (deep South inflected)world view, and how that world view--what allows her to make sense of the world--is brutally ripped away--what's left? Consider some of the imagery toward the end of the story--description of the sky, what she sees as she looks up for the last time. Other image patterns in the story--such as red dust (characteristic of the Georgia landscape), would also be worth pursuing...

To get started, a few notes, images, questions, things to think about...

Who are The Misfits?: the Misfit, the grandmother, the monkey, Jesus, parrots on a shirt…  a lot of things don't seem to "fit" the reality of their contexts...

Study the character of the grandmother: dress, values: as suggested by her stories, things/people she describes (including the “negro child”), comments to kids, dialogue with Sammy, the Misfit. Consider the story’s title in terms of the story’s conflict and grandmother’s character

Consider the relationship between the grandmother and the Misfit

Who's the real "misfit"?

Note carefully the details in the following scene (quoted below) and others near the end of the story.  Consider how scenes like this one, and others near the end of the story, imply character conflict, change, possible realizations or lack thereof; of course, these scenes should be interpreted in context of the grandmother’s character and distorted world view, as it is established in the first half of the story. Also, in context of what takes place after the accident, and in contrast to the grandmother’s previous observations and behavior, consider how both the Misfit and the grandmother describe the sky in negative imagery, as a “cloudless sky” and, in another related image, as a sky without clouds but also without sun.  (In the following scene, this latter image is repeated for the second time, through the grandmother’s point of view, consciously or not; the image was first presented through the eyes of the Misfit, during the initial meeting of the two characters after the accident)

“Alone with The Misfit, the grandmother found that she had lost her voice. There was not a cloud in the sky nor any sun. There was nothing around her but woods. She wanted to tell him that he must pray. She opened and closed her mouth several times before anything came out. Finally she found herself saying, "Jesus. Jesus," meaning, Jesus will help you, but the way she was saying it, it sounded as if she might be cursing.”

Closely consider the final scene, and the final image of that scene--the grandmother's last desperate attempts to make the misfit fit, the look on her face after she is shot, but what she is finally, in death, left looking at (as the narrator describes it, echoing the consciousness of the misfit, but generalizing that perception...).  Between the expression on the grandmother's face, and the expressionless sky...is the conflict, the essential realization (on the reader's part), the ambivalence of the grandmother's realization  (the eyes open, but in death, to all there ever was/is, of her world... but did she--see?)

Who's left standing at the end of the story (i.e., who/what lives)?

The story's chock-cull of irony.  Who's most in-touch w/reality (despite names), who's most out of touch with it?

Closely study the grandmother's character--what is she capable of accepting/understanding/believing, what not.

The end of the story may indicate the greatest "misfit"--a lack of fit between what the grandmother believed she was up to, and the greater, existential, ontological context embedding the the grandmother, the Misfit--all of us..

Here's how one critic tries to sum up the critical debate about the ending:
"'A Good Man Is Hard to Find' is one of Flannery O'Connor's most discussed and most problematic short stories. The major difficulty involves the story's climax. Should the Grandmother's final act—her touching of the Misfit—be taken as a token of true, divine grace and spiritual insight? Or should the story be interpreted strictly as a naturalistic [read "realistic," "disillusioned"--i.e., without illusions/delusions] document [that is to say at least the reader is critically disillusioned, at the end, if not the GM]? Perhaps the Grandmother achieves no spiritual insight [or perhaps, chillingly, the possibility that  there is none to achieve? It's all our illusions, myths of our making, to get us through...]. One can find critics on both sides of the argument."  The evidence, it seems, points us in the latter direction....

Remember to establish, at the beginning of your essay, the GM/s self-romanticizing, self-deluding character and her out-of-touch world view, which is inconsistent with her surroundings as well as other aspects of her own character (her manipulativeness, for eg--even what she has for lunch is oddly inconsistent with what you'd expect a "lady" to eat, and the ingredients of the lunch itself or "misfits" with each other).  Notice how her world view leads her to misperceive situations during the story, the most serious and desperately willful of which of course takes place after the (over)turning point.  Then, note how the Misfit represents a brute reality that annihilates, or completely voids the GM's belief system, and how this generates the GM's conflict--the desperate attempts to make the Misfit "fit" (into what?), and struggles with/attempts to remain in denial about some of her own observations, in the final scenes, which suggest she may at least be unconsciously acknowledging the disillusioning meaning of the "Misfit." Does she ever make that final, what would be a self-annihilating, realization? Can she accept what the Misfit represents? In whose world view, finally, is the Misfit a misfit, and who is the real misfit ("real" the key...)? Explore some of these ironies, along with others noted below, and various sub-plays on "misfits."

From perspective of above: Who is the first one to "recognize" the Misfit (after the accident)? what is the irony?  Also, another irony, what enabled said person to recognize him (hint--not comic books?)

Well, perhaps the grandmother and Young Goodman Brown do have something in common (read the latter story, a fable set in a similar either/or value system, and see...)

SO, to sum up:

First read and reread this blog post, esp the par above beginning "remember to establish..." which outlines the main conflicts.

I also mention several specific scenes, details, and patterns of detail, above and below, you can consider to show how these conflicts develop

The focus of the essay should be the GM's self-deluding worldview and self-image, how this is out of sync with reality, and how it is contradicted by other aspects of her character, and how this world view is undermined by her encounter with the Misfit, and the reality he represents, which is basically an emptying of the GM's belief system.  

To prove the first part of this thesis, establish the problems with the GM's character and worldview; note details of scenes toward the beginning of the story--how she refers to herself, how she dresses for a mundane road trip (she appears to be  dressed to play a role inconsistent with the reality of what she is doing); not also the kind of world she imaginatively inserts herself into in stories, jokes, and other comments she makes along the way.  
Note how the accident symbolizes a turning point in the story, and how descriptions of her appearance change (compare to earlier) and what this suggests, regarding above thesis (note also the GM refers to an imaginary "accident" earlier, and the flaws in the way that is imagined, v what a "real" accident looks like--again, this shows the out-of-touch nature of her self image and worldview). 

Then go on to focus on key details, passages of dialogue, etc, in the second part of the story that show how the Misfit disrupts and basically erases the GM's belief system, while she  struggles to hold onto it and continues to willfully misperceive what the Misfit means by certain observation, and what he is--what he represents; show how she continues to remain in denial and struggles to make him fit her unrealistic world view  (though psychologically unable to accept what the Misfit represents,  there are, however, some indications that she unconsciously grasps it).  As part of this discussion, it is important to  note how the Misfit actually "fits" her concept of a "gentleman"---though she fails see the (bitter) irony

The above of course is general statement; these general remarks derive for specific evidence and details in the story itself.  If the story is carefully read, the above statements should "ring true"--i.e, they should bring several specific details to mind from throughout the story itself.  As is ALL analyses, remember to focus on specific details of scenes, provide necessary context, and avoid leaping to scenes toward the end without first establishing the GM's character so we can see what is at stake for her, and why she struggles against realization---we can't see conflict without first establishing  the terms of the conflict.

Plot:

An important plot event: the “accident”: the overturning of the car as, symbolically, a turning point. The grandmother’s worldview overturned (her worldview: somewhat perverted “old south”—how could it not be?-- which has its own internal inconsistencies, as this rubs against other aspects of her character)… disillusionment (who sees the cloudless sky, but w/no sun?) v. desperate attempts to hold on to this worldview…attend to details of the scenes, before and after the turning point, changes—the surroundings, grandmother’s dress, the dialogue, what happens to the shirt...

some of the revealing image/symbol patterns to trace:

silver-white sunlight / white sun / cloudless sky, but no sun [two characters, as the narrator notes, see it this way--see below, "Plot" --to see this, is to see... what?] /  white faces / pale eyes: important in this pattern, in terms of the central conflict and theme, and whether or not that conflict is resolved in any way, in the story's final scene, is both what is there and what is not there--i.e., what the grandmother "sees" finally is not so much a something as a....?

the irony of the story ending in bright [though not described this way] light, considering the darkness of the vision we're left with

yellow shirt with blue parrots / yellow faces / intense blue eyes

red clay / red road dust / pink dust / red depression / dust-covered trees

deep, dark woods / winding road w/sudden dips and rises /

monkey in a Chinaberry tree in Georgia / parrots on a shirt

The GM's appearance/dress and how it changes, esp the hat and what it comes into contact with after the accident

the functions of various two-dimensional images (comic books) and newspapers (as they indicate various ways characters are out-of-touch --with what?--even though a newspaper would suggest the opposite...)

Inversions: What's left standing, right-side up? What's been flipped--"oncet... we seen it happen"?

Names: the cat (and, assuming the grandmother named the cat, as who else in the story could, with such a name, as this reflects symbolically on her--on the central conflict, w/perhaps also a bit of foreshadowing); the girl