This
is the final post on Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man is Hard to Find.”
You
can find Part 1 here.
I
started the conversation with a question of what is similar and what is
different between the Misfit and the grandmother. I think there is a value in exploring this
contrast, especially since I see it as leading to another theological theme.
As
to how they are different, perhaps that is the easy side of the equation and we
can dispense with it quickly. First, the
grandmother is not a killer. Second, the
grandmother uses her verbal dexterity and her wits to get her way and not a
gun. "She was a talker," Bobby
Lee says. Meanwhile the Misfit seems to
be rather reticent. He's the opposite of
his father who seems to have a "knack of handling" the authorities. The Misfit is the opposite; he seems to
succumb to the authorities.
Interestingly the authorities claim the Misfit killed his father, the
talker, just as he will kill the grandmother, the talker. I think the suggestion is that the Misfit
really did kill his father. The
grandmother's entire interaction with the Misfit is her attempt to handle the
authority of the guy with the gun. She
fails. The guy with the gun gets his
way.
As
to how they are similar, that takes some close reading to reveal, but I think
it's more probing. They are both sinful
people, though I think the Misfit realizes his sins while the grandmother is
oblivious to them. But I think at the
heart of it, their sins stem from the same impulse. Committing crimes and especially murdering
people is imposing your will over God's will.
What are the grandmother's chief sins?
As I listed above, she's vindictive, childish, conniving, manipulative,
and devious. I said she was
"passive-aggressive" which at its core is not that different from the
Misfit's aggressive behavior, the difference being how they weaponized the
aggression. Notice the grandmother
aggressive behavior toward Bailey when she tries to change his mind about going
to Florida standing "with one hand on her thin hip and the other rattling
the newspaper at his bald head."
Now the newspaper is not a gun, but the posturing is aggressive. Vindictive, conniving, manipulative, these
are sins where she is imposing her will onto people. Ultimately for both the Misfit and for Grandma,
it's not "thy will be done" but "my will be done."
And
the childishness is also a commonality between the two. We've seen the grandmother reduce herself to
the children's level. She banters on
their level and they feel free to continue the bantering because they see her
as a mental equal. The Misfit too is an
adult who appears to not have matured.
He doesn't kill for gain; he kills for the heck of it. His problems seem to stem from when he was a
child.
"I never was a bad
boy that I remember of," The Misfit said in an almost dreamy voice,
"but somewheres along the line I done something wrong and got sent to the
penitentiary. I was buried alive," and he looked up and held her attention
to himby a steady stare.
"That's when you
should have started to pray," she said. "What did you do to get sent
to the penitentiary that first time?"
"Turn to the right,
it was a wall," The Misfit said, looking up again at the cloudless sky.
"Turn to the left, it was a wall. Look up it was a ceiling, look down it
was a floor. I forget what I done, lady. I set there and set there, trying to
remember what it was I done and I ain't recalled it to this day. Oncet in a
while, I would think it was coming to me, but it never come."
Not
remembering one's crime is actually what a child says and does. At the end when the grandmother hits a nerve
on whether Jesus existed that brings the Misfit into a childish emotion.
"I wasn't there so I
can't say He didn't," The Misfit said. "I wisht I had of been
there," he said, hitting the ground with his fist. "It ain't right I
wasn't there because if I had of been there I would of known. Listen
lady," he said in a high voice, "if I had of been there I would of
known and I wouldn't be like I am now." His voice seemed about to crack and the
grandmother's head cleared for an instant.
He
reverts back to his childhood here, and places blame at some outside
circumstance for his criminal behavior, making an excuse like a child. Even he seems to think at the heart of his
problem is some inability to piece the adult world together.
"I call myself The
Misfit," he said, "because I can't make what all I done wrong fit
what all I gone through in punishment."
No
child thinks his punishment is warranted.
He is saying that about himself.
And what criminal calls himself the "Misfit?" Al Capone called himself
"Scarface." The famous pirate
called himself "Blackbeard."
Another criminal was called "Jack the Ripper." John Wesley and June Star in the story are
misfits. As is the grandmother. The name "The Misfit" is childish,
and suggests his problems are rooted in an arrested development.
Another
commonality between the two is a veneer of respectability. Yes, the Misfit is a psychopathic killer, but
he is respectful and kind. When the
grandmother recognizes the Misfit and Bailey shouts some unmentionable words to
his mother, the Misfit finds an excuse for Bailey: “Lady,” he said, “don’t you
get upset. Sometimes a man says things he don’t mean. I don’t reckon he meant
to talk to you thataway.” When the
misfit wants to send Bailey and John Wesley into the woods, he asks
kindly. He is even kinder when he asks
the children’s mother and the little girl, making sure one of his henchmen
helps the mother up. He even excuses
himself when he’s embarrassed to be shirtless in front of ladies.
” He put on his black hat
and looked up suddenly and then away deep into the woods as if he were embarrassed
again. “I’m sorry I don’t have on a shirt before you ladies,” he said, hunching
his shoulders slightly. “We buried our
clothes that we had on when we escaped and we’re just making do until we can
get better. We borrowed these from some folks we met,” he explained.
He’s
trying to make do “until we can get better,”
That’s the language of one concerned with respectability.
The
grandmother’s veneer of respectability is on display throughout the story. She dresses fancy for a vacation ride because
“anyone seeing her dead on the highway would know at once that she was a lady.” She tells June Star she should be “ashamed”
for insulting the waitress but meanwhile moments before in private she used the
most horrid racist terms. And she is
obsessed with the notion of a “good man.”
She tells Red Butts he’s a good man.
Red Butts is essentially a lying slob who keeps a monkey chained to a
tree and bosses his wife around. And
what does she tell the Misfit?
“I just know you’re a
good man,” she said desperately. “You’re not a bit common!”
Not
being “common” seems to be her definition of what is a good man. I’m sure she considers herself a good lady,
after all she does think of herself as a lady and not common. But is this the Christian definition of a
good man? Isn’t the definition of a good
man one who acts like Jesus Christ, who has the heart of Jesus Christ, or at
least tries to? Neither Red Butts nor
the Misfit nor the grandmother even come close to acting like Christ. That is why a good man is hard to find.
###
Let
me just add that there is nothing wrong with being respectable. We all should be respectable. Respectability is a way of being
neighborly. The issue is that that for
the grandmother (and the Misfit) it is only a veneer. Just as the Misfit on the surface is
respectable while inside he's a cold hearted murderer, the grandmother is only
respectable on the outside while on the inside she's a selfish racist.
So
why are all these similarities between the Misfit and the grandmother
important? Ultimately the story is about
the grandmother. The similarities
between the two provide a projection into each one. So what is at the core of the Misfit, can be,
with some reasonable consideration, attributed to the grandmother. This I think is important to grasp the
theological implications of the story.
We are allowed into the Misfit's theological understanding of life, and
so with reasonable deliberation, we can project that theological world view to
the grandmother. Let's look at some of
the theological points. Let’s look at
the easiest one first, not needing help.
"If you would
pray," the old lady said, "Jesus would help you."
"That's right,"
The Misfit said.
"Well then, why
don't you pray?" she asked trembling with delight suddenly.
"I don't want no
hep," he said. "I'm doing all right by myself."
Is
he really doing alright by himself? He’s
been locked up in jail. He’s not doing
alright. He could use a lot of
help. Now project this into the
grandmother, and let’s consider the state of her soul. Is her soul doing alright by herself? She doesn’t seem to want help and she is
extraordinarily willful. It’s been her
will, not “thy will.” From what we have
seen of her sinfulness, I would say right now she’s heading for hell, the
metaphysical equivalent of the Misfit’s jail.
Second,
let’s look at how the Misfit can’t seem to recall sins.
"Turn to the right,
it was a wall," The Misfit said, looking up again at the cloudless sky.
"Turn to the left, it was a wall. Look up it was a ceiling, look down it
was a floor. I forget what I done, lady. I set there and set there, trying to remember
what it was I done and ain't recalled it
to this day. Oncet in a while, I would think it was coming to me, but it never
come."
Consider
that as a metaphor for sitting at judgment day in front of Christ the
judge. None of us will be able to recall
all the sins of a lifetime. Most of the
time we aren’t even aware of the sins we commit that moment. Look at all the sins the grandmother has
committed on that morning’s journey.
She’s oblivious to them.
Third,
let’s look at what the Misfit says about matching the punishment to the crime.
"Jesus thown
everything off balance. It was the same
case with Him as with me except He hadn't committed any crime and they could
prove I had committed one because they had the papers on me. Of course,"
he said, "they never shown me my papers. That's why I sign myself
now. I said long ago, you get you a
signature and sign everything you do and keep a copy of it. Then you'll know
what you done and you can hold up the crime to the punishment and see do they
match and in the end you'll have something to prove you ain't been treated
right.
Again,
take that as a metaphor for facing the Judge and He going down a list of your
sins to decide what your eternal fate will be.
This is how the Misfit conceptualizes eternal judgement. But that’s not theologically correct, at
least from a Catholic perspective. It’s
not a list but the state of your soul at death.
We all commit sins, but is your soul clean and absolved and in a state
of grace? I think we get further insight
when the Misfit talks about his name.
I call myself The Misfit,"
he said, "because I can't make what all I done wrong fit what all I gone
through in punishment."
The
implication I think is that he can’t fit the theology together. It doesn’t make sense to him. I think O’Connor is contrasting a Protestant
world view against a Catholic. We the
reader know the Catholic view, and we’re watching the Protestants live out
their dislocations that result from their world view. It’s O’Connor who solicits Protestant and Catholic
distinctions by naming the boy “John Wesley,” the same as a famous Protestant
theologian.
For
O’Connor, it seems to me that what drives her Protestant characters to this
sort of tension and anxiety is the lack of graces we Catholics receive from the
sacraments and from a church that provides authority. We don’t have to make it fit. The Church and the Magisterium has made it
fit for us. For the Misfit, and the
grandmother presumably, it’s him and his bible.
They have to make it fit on their own.
Second, the sacrament of penance on a regular basis would have done both
the Misfit and the grandmother a world of good.
Neither would be experiencing the anxiety of a final judgement if their
sins had been taken care of sacramentally.
So
when the grandmother implores the Misfit to “pray, pray” and call on Jesus for
help, she is symbolically telling herself to pray and to call on Jesus. Notice how many times she calls on Jesus in
that encounter. Notice, when she reaches
her moment of crises, she falls “down in the ditch with her legs twisted under
her.” Are her legs twisted supposed to
suggest the crossed legs of Christ on the cross? Is O’Connor giving her a spiritual communion
with Christ as the grandmother seems to emotionally breakdown? I think so.
It comes just before her moment of compassion. A spiritual communion is as close as one can
come to actually receiving the sacrament.
We have been living with spiritual communions watching Mass on TV during
this virus.
I
would also venture to say that the three bullets the Mistfit fires into her is a
spiritual sacrament too. One could name
the bullets Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
I’m
not one hundred percent sure on the theology.
If anyone has other thoughts, please feel free to correct me. I don’t claim to be a theologian.
###
Madeleine
Commented:
I like your analysis,
Manny, although I think it may be a bit of a reach to imagine the Misfit
administering sacraments.
My
Reply:
LOL, I didn't quite
phrase it that way, but that is a startling thought.
###
I
found this nice three and a half minute video biography of O’Connor. It gives you the basic facts and displays some
nice photographs.
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