To foreshadow is to give a hint or a suggestion of a forthcoming event. Flannery O’Connor uses the foreshadowing effect adequately in “A Good Man Is Hard to Find.” There were many hints and suggestions that something unpleasant was going to happen in this story. The moment the grandmother first speaks of the misfit, we can assume he will show up later in the story because he is headed in the same direction as the family. Close to the ending, when the gunshots are heard from the woods, we can assume that the situation cannot get much worse.

The first hint of trouble comes early in the story before the first paragraph ends. The grandmother tries to show Bailey a newspaper article about The Misfit, who has escaped the penitentiary and is headed toward Florida. The grandmother tries to discourage Bailey from taking the family to Florida again by telling him he ought to take the children somewhere else for a change, but he disregards his mother and they go on the trip anyway. The probability that an escaped convict is headed in the same direction as Bailey and his family suggests havoc

The family arrives at Red Sammy’s, so they go inside and are seated at a table. Red Sam comes inside and sighs, “You can’t win” he said, “You can’t win“(224), and then he goes on to say, “These days you don’t know who to trust.”(224). The grandmother agrees with Sam and seems to invite a conversation on the topic of trust with him. The subject of trust comes about, so this leads me to believe that something insidious is going to happen within the story. When Sam’s wife brought the orders to the table, the grandmother asks the woman about the misfit so the woman comments on how she wouldn’t be surprised if the Misfit attacked the barbecue tower. Whenever the matter of The Misfit is raised again, this suggests to me that the family will come in contact with him sooner or later.

After the family is back on the road, the grandmother recalls an old plantation that she had visited when she was a young lady. She and the children manage to persuade Bailey to turn around and look for the dirt road where the plantation was located. Once on the dirt road, the situation starts to seem perilous. O’Connor describes the road as hilly wit

Some topics in this essay:
Red Sam, Hard Find”, Flannery O’Connor, Red Sammy’s, , foreshadowing effect, o’connor describes, gunshots heard, “a hard find”, o’connor describes road, newspaper article misfit, dirt road, grandmother tries, newspaper article, headed direction, heard woods, article misfit, gunshots heard woods, reader believe,