While his conflict with the grandmother and the conflict within himself are both enough to drive him to shooting the woman, neither causes him to do it. In fact, the Misfit seems to be patiently listening to and considering her arguments and pleas for life. It comes as a bit of a shock when she merely utters a single sentence more, touches him lightly and he then shoots her point blank. “‘Why you’re one of my babies. You’re one of my own children!’ She reached out and touched him on the shoulder. The Misfit sprang back as if a snake had bitten him and shot her three times through the chest. (478)” He has been listening to her frightened statements the entire time and reacted violently to nothing, however when she says this nearly nonsensical sentence, he shoots her without a second thought. Flannery O’Conner herself sheds light onto the grandmother’s statement in a critique of her own work called “A Reasonable Use of the Unreasonable.” “The Grandmother is a last alone, facing the Misfit. Her head clears for an instant and she realizes, even in her limited way, that she is responsible for the man before her and joined to him in the mystery she has been merely prattling about so far. At this point, she does the right thing, makes the right choice. (513)” O’Conner states that the grandmother recognizes a link between her and the Misfit; that they are both children of the same world and the same God, that she is not better than he is, and that she, along with the rest of humanity, is responsible for the circumstance in which this young man is in now. While this is a great source of enlightenment to her, it is not such a great one for the Misfit. He is disgusted by the thought of being related to her in any way whatsoever. In a commentary called “A Good Man’s Predicament,” Madison Jones further depicts the Misfit’s disgust. “Given the Misfit’s image of himself, her words and her touching, blessing him amount to intolerable insult, for hereby she includes him among the world’s family of vulgarians. One of her children, her kind indeed! (518)” To the Misfit, the grandmother’s lying and self-centered family is exactly what he doesn’t want to be. Yes, he is a murderer, but in his eyes, there is no higher authority, namely God, to find fault in his actions. The superficiality of t

Some topics in this essay:
Hard Find”, Madison Jones, Misfit Christ, Reasonable Unreasonable”, Merciful Mercy, Flannery O’Conner, Flannery O’Conner’s, raise dead, conflict grandmother conflict, loses control shoots, loses control, line wrong, patiently listening, dysfunctional family, control shoots, wrong doesn’t, misfit merciful, misfit struggling, sent penitentiary,