She tries to convince her son, Bailey that they should not travel to Florida because she "wouldn't take my children in any direction with a criminal like that aloose in it."(O'Connor). This line infers that the grandmother is predicting that they will most likely run into The Misfit in Florida. However, she losing this battle and decides she needs to bring her cat on the trip because "she was afraid that he might brush against one of the gas burners and accidentally asphyxiate himself." (O'Connor). This line is perhaps one of the most ironic foreshadowing pieces because near the end of the story the cat causes the climax of the story; he jumps into the grandmother son, Bailey's, lap causing the car accident which leads to The Misfit and his gang finding their family. In the end, it is not the cat that asphyxiates himself, but the cat that leads to the family's deaths. Shortly after the grandmother sneaks the cat into the car, the narrator describes the grandmother's outfit as very proper and ladylike because "in case of an accident, anyone seeing her dead on the highway would know at once that she was a lady."(O'Connor). This is foreshadowing that death is lurking. Perhaps the ultimate line that hints at the family's death is when they pass a cotton field "with five or six graves fenced in the middle of it"(O'Connor), one for each family member. All of the foreshadowing in the first two pages of the story show that God has chosen an enigmatic way to reveal to the family their demise.
Flannery O'Connor effectively uses her characterization of the grandmother throughout the entire story to show how she believes God and religion impact humans. It is obvious that in the beginning of the story the grandmother is not very religious. Instead, O'Connor uses this time to show the grandmother's selfish, manipulation side. It was the master manipulation of the grandmother that led the family into danger because she wanted to see the old plantation; even though she knew that Bailey would not go for it, she lies through her teeth, gets the children excited, and forges ahead with her plan.
