The short story, “A Good Man is Hard to Find” written by Flannery O’Connor, is about a southern family from going on a road trip to Tennessee to see the grandmother’s old house that she used to visit as a child. On the way there, they stop at a diner called “The Tavern” where the grandmother recieves information about a killer on the loose called “The Misfit”. On the way to the house, the grandmother leads the family down a dirt path and they get into a car accident and end up in a ditch, stranded. A car pulls up to their accident and three men step out, one of them being the misfit. The men kill the family and leave the grandmother last. The grandmother first tries using religion and Christ to stop the misfit from shooting her and then she realizes she is no better than the misfit. The misfit then shoots her three times and kills her.

A possible theme for this story would be society and class because the grandmother makes many references in the dialogue on how to be lady-like and polite. The author makes many references to how she dresses like an upper class lady with her white gloves and her “best Sunday dress”. The granmother also has an upper-class mindset because she desires children to be polite, she uses slander when describing the black race, and she lingers on the old plantations that she used to visit.

Two criticisms that could be used would be racial and cultural or reader response. Either criticism could be used because the story provides detail information about word choice, family relationships, setting, dialogue, hidden meaning, action, character, and moral.

I think people should read this piece, especially if it is for a criticism assignment because the story provides the reader with many topics that could be discussed in criticism.