In Flannery O'Connor's "A Good Man is Hard to Find," the
main characters, ironically perhaps, are bound together as they have secrets that have
kept them from salvation; also they are bound in themes of guilt and sin. While the
grandmother is redeemed by the words of the Misfit, the grotesque who provides her grace
at the moment of violence when she says "You are one of my children," he himself is not
redeemed.
For, he has changed his mind completely about the
meaning of life. Wearing glasses that make him appear intelligent although he is clearly
uneducated, the Misfit steps from a large, black "hearse-like" automobile. After she
recognizes him and continues to talk to him, the Misfit tells the grandmother that his
father said,
"it's some that can live their whole life out
without asking about it [life] and it's others who has to know why it is, and this boy
is one of the latters. He's going to be into
everything!"
He tells the
grandmother that he was a gospel singer for a while, along with many other occupations.
Saying that he was never really a bad boy, the Misfit observes that
somewhere
"along the line I done something wrong and got
sent to the penitentiary. I was buried
alive."
At this point he
stares steadily at the grandmother. She tells him to pray, but he says that he could
never recall what it was that he had done, even though "they had the papers on me." He
states that a psychiatrist at the penitentiary said that he had killed his father, but
he contends that his father died of the epidemic flu, so the doctor lied and he was
punished unjustly. At the grandmother's insistence that Jesus would help him if he
prayed, the Misfit declares, "I don't want no hep
[help]."
The Misfit has lost faith because the authorities
have lied. He states that it does not matter whether you take a tire or kill a man, you
will "just be punished" all the same. For, "Jesus thrown everything off balance" by
having been punished for no crime Himself. Now he keeps papers, recording what he does
and signing it so that the justice system will not be able to convict him for what he
has not done. He calls himself "The Misfit" because he cannot fit his crimes with his
punishment. Continuing, the Misfit says,
"He shouldn't have done it. [allowed Himself to
be crucified. ] He thrown everything off balance. If He did what He said,then it's
nothing for you to do but throw away everything and follow him, and if He didn't, then
it's nothing for you to do but enjoy the few minutes you got left the best way you
can--by killing somebody or burning down his house or doing some other meannes to him.
No pleasure but
meanness."
The Misfit has
lost faith and only believes in the depravity of man--"meanness." He is the doubting
Thomas, saying that if he had lived when Jesus did, he would have known and would not be
as he is now. In fact it is these words of his that bring the grandmother to an
epiphany as she recognizes her own depravity.
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