I think that O'Connor made the children in the story so obnoxious in order to render the grandmother's disgust with the world all the more powerful. She longs for the way things used to be, when children were well-mannered and polite, when sons took care of their mothers, when men were gentlemen and women were ladies. The force of the children's rudeness and disrespect toward her serves to solidify her feelings about the terrible state the world is in now, compared to the way it used to be. They are so awful that their treatment of her cements her feelings and seems to make her believe them all the more. Then, when she is confronted with the Misfit in the end of the story, she says all the wrong things to him because her family's behavior has made her believe in the truth of her elitist beliefs, beliefs that help him to understand that she is part of the group that has mistreated him for his entire life.
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