Thursday, November 1, 2007
A Good Man Is Hard To Find
I think this story should have had a different title called Good People Are Hard to Find, because it seems as if Misfit and his people weren't the only ones that were bad people. The children were very disrespectful to their parents. From reading the story I thought they were older kids, (even though that wouldn't make it better) but they were just so disrespectful to their parents. And the grandmother wasn't setting a good example herself, she was very selfish and only cared for herself. She showed her true colors at the end of the story when her life was going to be taken away. She had no remorse for what she had caused to happen to her son and his family, basically it was her who put them in the situation they were in. However, I think the title of the story had meaning because a good man is hard to find, but a bad man (Misfit) is very easy to find. It just so happen that the family spoke of him before they left for the trip and look how easy it was to run in to him while on the trip. What a coincidence!
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2 comments:
Yes, "Misfit" is ambiguous, here, right, and perhaps the greatest irony--is it the reverse of what we think? The criminal claims to be the "misfit"--but what is it that doesn't "fit" in the story? Could this partly be about world views that don't quite fit realities? What happens when different worlds collide? To a great extent, this is a story about values and world views--belief systems that sustain us, and how those may often be illusons--if not self-delusionary. 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 Gerogia landscape), would also be worth pursuing... and a key image, at the turning point of the story, when the car is overturned-- from a symbolic pov., what's overturned?
"She had no remorse for what she had caused to happen to her son and his family" If these were real events you'd blame the grandmother for the death of the people in this car because she suggested taking another route? Come on...
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