A Grandmother and her family decide to take a family trip to Florida, half way through their trip, the family decides to take a detour, which lead up to them having an encounter with three fugitives who go by the name’s of “The Misfit’s”.By the end of the story, The Misfit’s reveals The Grandmother is not as good of a person, as she seems.O’Connor, Stephen, “A Good Man Is Hard to Find”, (1953).This story is a mixture of violence and redemption, which gives the killing a ethical and moral consideration likely similar to the one in Bandy, Stephen’s “One of My Babies”.When The Grandmother realised she was the last one to be killed, she immediately went into preaching about god.O’Connor uses violence to invoke The Grandmother’s spiritual beliefs.The Grandmother tries to get The Misfit sympathy by telling him “Why you’re one of my babies, you’re one of my own children”.Bandy feels as she was only saying that because she felt desperate and needed to connect with The Misfit to let her live.This essay argues that O’Connor’s portrayal of killing in “A Good Man is Hard to Find” reinforces the moral issues talked in Bandy’s “One of My Babies”,The Grandmother’s selfish life decisions ends up killing her, eventually showing the relationship between personal morality, redemption and violence.
The Misfit role in “A Good Man is Hard to Find” is portrayed as evil but with the mix of a deep thinker.Even though he has done violent actions, The Misfit takes part in a reflection of faith with The Grandmother.when The Grandmother talked about Jesus,

The Misfit doubted that Jesus brought people back from the dead, which differs from The Grandmother’s spiritual beliefs.Bandy’s essay talks about this contrary by showing us that when The Misfit was being honest about his beliefs, The Grandmother’s faith became more shallower.While The Misfit realices his own actions of failure, The Grandmother never struggled with realising the wrong she has done with her actions until the end.In the story, O’Connor used The Misfit to confront the disturbing truth about The Grandmothers character, showing the readers that he might be a murderer, but he has a better understanding of what is good and bad unlike The Grandmother.This killing makes the audience rethink who is actually “good” in the story.
In the story, “A Good Man is Hard to Find”, O’Connor shows how the character of The Grandmother truly is and the norms in life she stands for.throughout the beginning of the story, The Grandmother has her own understanding of what it means to be a “good” person based on people’s actions and appearances rather than genuine principles.When The Grandmother talks to The Misfit and insist on him to “pray” and eventually telling him he’s a “good man”, this shows she was trying to manipulate The misfits perception of what is good and bad.It is only a few moments before she dies, when she calls The Misfit “one of my babies”, which the reader could interpret as her having a sincere moment of grace.Although, in Stephen Bandy’s “One of My Babies”, it makes more difficult this explanation, meaning that The Grandmother’s last words were said by self-protection rather than real empathy.According to Bandy, The Grandmother’s last words did not come out of love but of desperation, as she was trying to manipulate The Misfit by trying to get in his head.This perspective could question the idea that The Grandmother finds

redemption at the end of the story.Instead it shows how empty her morals are.O’Connor examines The Grandmother and society depending on the judgement
of goodness, suggesting that knowing what’s good or bad is not based on appearances but it must come from a deeper place.
The climax of the story “A Good Man is Hard to Find” is the brutal killing of the family, which helped the author explore the theme of grace through violence.As the story formed, The Grandmother is shown as a hypocrite and a person who always feels she’s right.However, before she dies, she experience a moment that could be seen as her first encounter with grace.Stephen Bandy disagrees with this idea, arguing that The Grandmother’s final act , when she reached out to touch The Misfit, could be viewed as her being manipulative instead of having a true spiritual moment.Bandy feels that O’Connor leaves this moment so unclear to build tension between a person having the potential of redemption and the reality that people can be selfish.The violence that is shown by The Misfits becomes an opposing force, it takes The Grandmother’s false moral knowing and makes her face her own mortality and vulnerability.O’Connor shows the complicated relationship between personal morality, violence and redemption by putting the characters in a moment of crisis.The Grandmothers death might not represent a route to salvation, but it gives the readers an opportunity to consider the unexpected ways grace could show up, even in the darkest situations.
In Conclusion, Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man is Hard to Find” portrayal of killing shows the readers the contradictory and unpredictable nature of grace, proposing

that only the moments of crisis and violence can give someone a true search of meaning and redemption.The story uses the act of killing to question traditional ideas of morality, allowing the audience to see the shallow nature of the complicated relationship between violence, personal beliefs, and the quest of redemption.The Grandmother and The Misfit meeting serves as a pivotal moment where her lack of understanding goodness is stripped away, forcing her to confront her own hypocrisy.Stephen Bandy’s essay “One of My Babies” goes deep into questioning The Grandmother’s final actions, proposing that even in her last moments, her behavior was selfish rather than her acting with grace.O’Connor portrayed the idea that true moral clarity can come from violent actions to challenge your understanding good and evil.