In the story "A Good Man is Hard to Find," both the grandmother and Misfit act upon their own perception of what is good and what is evil. The grandmother's actions and lack of self-awareness lead her and her entire family to get killed by the misfit. The notion of evil in the story is described in all the actions of the grandmother. She is selfish and racist, and her judgments lead to her and the entire family's death.
From the beginning of the story, the grandmother's actions lead to her demise and her family's. She starts the trip out by trying to manipulate her son into going to a different state for her own personal pleasure. O'Connor writes, "The grandmother didn't want to go to Florida. She wanted to visit some of her connections in east Tennessee, and she was seizing at every chance to change Bailey's mind" (521). In "A Good Man is Hard to Find," the grandmother, who was not named by the author, was aware there was a loose criminal. She told him, "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'Connor 521). Her attempt to try and manipulate him to go to a different state failed.
The grandmother's racist encounter happened when she described an African American boy to her grandchildren. Menna Banna writes, "The grandmother demonstrates racial and class prejudice through her words and actions" (Parag 4). When she sees an African American boy on the side of the road, she says, "Oh, look at the cute little pickaninny" (O'Connor 523). When the little girl commented on the boy's look, she told her '"He probably didn't have any," the grandmother explained. "Little niggers in the country don't have things like we do"' (O'Connor 523). A good person does not judge someone based on their looks and on materialistic belongings.
Her evil character showed in her materialistic personality in "The Function of Signature in 'A Good Man is Hard to Find'" Owens writes, "She is very cautious throughout the story to what people are wearing because to her it is through such things as clothing that one can externally reflect internal worth" (parag4) . She dressed elaborately while her son was in a button-up shirt, and her daughter-in-law was described as wearing slacks, a more appropriate look for a family road trip.
The grandmother was evil in her selfishness and by being unaware of her judgmental ways. She was stubborn when she realized she failed to get her way with her son to persuade him to go where she wanted, so she lied to her grandchildren to get them interested in changing routes to visit a mysterious house and told them, "There was a secret panel in this house" (O'Connor 525). She wants to retreat from the real world in a fantasy for her own pleasure, and that's a fantasy that leads the family to f...
