Saturday, November 3, 2012

In "A Good Man is Hard to Find" by Flannery O'Connor, does the grandmother remain a static character or does she in any way change as the story...

The grandmother seems like a static character for the vast majority of the story; however, in the last paragraphs of the text, she has an epiphany that completely changes her perspective.  After she and the Misfit have conversed for quite a while (as the rest of her family is murdered by his confederates in the woods), her "head cleared for an instant.  She saw the man's face twisted close to her own as if he were going to cry and she murmured, 'Why you're one of my babies.  You're one of my own children!" and she reaches out to touch the Misfit.  He jumps back to avoid her touch and shoots her in the chest.  


However, this realization that she had seems to concern the arbitrariness of the divisions she has erected in her mind.  She has viewed the world from a particular status, looking down on anyone who is not of that status; thus, she would typically have looked down on the Misfit, and he realized it because of the kind of language she used when she kept telling him that he was a "good man."  In this moment, with a clear head caused by the fact that she knows she's about to die, the grandmother no longer sees the differences between herself and the Misfit, but what they have in common instead.  She sees him, suddenly, with compassion.  Therefore, she is, in fact, a dynamic character.

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