To deserve something, usually, unpleasant, and to be spared from that fate is a rare feeling to experience. Many people believe that one will always get what they deserve, and because they deserve their particular fate, no mercy should be granted. Then there are those who would be merciful id their situation allowed them to be. The Misfit, a character in Flannery O"Conner's short story "A Good Man is Hard to Find," is one such person. The Misfit seems like a nearly merciful soul, one who could perhaps be swayed to lean towards mercy in a given situation. For example, when he puts off the shooting of the grandmother in O"Conner's story, one can be led to believe that he may in fact change his mind and let her go free. However, when she calls him one of her babies, he loses control and shoots her in the chest. This leads to the question: why did he shoot her so suddenly after so patiently listening to her pleas to spare her? Though a little bit difficult, the answer can be discerned. The Misfit loses control and shoots the grandmother because he is essentially at odds with her, is wrestling with his own self, and is ultimately disgusted by being called a child of hers. .
The conflict between the Misfit and the grandmother starts after the first meet. ""You"re the Misfit! I recognized you at once!" (Perrine's 473)"This is not the thing to proclaim to a murderer who is trying his very best to stay as inconspicuous as possible. While this is a good enough reason to shot and kill her right there, the misfit does not and is even cheerful and polite to the grandmother as he sends her family members off to be shot and killed. The grandmother does not help her case when she begins to try and plea with the misfit by flattering him. ""You don't look a bit like you have common blood. I know you must come from nice people!" "Yes mam," he said, "Finest people in the world. God never made a finer woman than my mother and m daddy's heart was pure gold.
All along the Misfit intends to kill the family. ... The Misfit has a clear strategy for execution of the doomed family. ... The Misfit has had to experience much more of the real world than has the family. ... The Misfit shows more capacity for grace than does the grandmother. ... " This shows a little mercy and capability of change in the Misfit that is not present in the grandmother whatsoever. ...
Note that when she mentions the Misfit criminal who escaped from prison, the "pickaninny," and when she mentions the two cents in Red Sammy's cash register with a tone of irony on her voice. ... First, she is afraid to tell her son that she was mistaken because of her fear of his anger, and later, because they are under the mercy of the Misfit who finds them. The Grandmother's soul fills with fear when she finds out who the Misfit really is, and that their situation is worsening by the minute. ... the grand mother askes. she did niot relize trhat she had dug into the subject tht the ...
Here this fellow that calls himself The Misfit is aloose from the Federal Pen and headed toward Florida and you read here what it says he did to the people "(117) These are a few very good clues on what will happen throughout the story. ... Note that when she mentions the Misfit criminal who escaped from prison, the "pickaninny," and when she mentions the two cents in Red Sammy's cash register with a tone of irony on her voice. ... First, she is afraid to tell her son that she was mistaken because of her fear of his anger, and later, because they are under the mercy of the Misfit w...
The irony in A Good Man is Hard to Find is that the grandmother reads about the Misfit in the newspaper and tries to stop the family from driving to Florida because she wants to go to Tennessee. She goes on and on about the Misfit and warns them that he's on the loose. ... The irony is that she seeks to save the Misfit and save her own life. In the end she realizes that she and the Misfit are the same and she ends up being saved by her own death. ... When she meets the Misfit she is shocked when he changes her ideas about forgiveness and mercy. ...
The characters are abandoned to the whims of the Misfit under a sunless, cloudless sky. ... They are alone and helpless - left to the mercy of an escaped psychopath. ... Then later, after the arrival of the Misfit, the image grows even more menacing, "behind them the line of woods gaped like a dark open mouth"(127). ... She is totally alone, at the mercy of a madman, and there will be no stay of execution for her. ... It is no accident that characters come to find themselves at the mercy of the "woods" while on an errant treasure hunt, not for the things of God, but for a worldly treasu...
The Misfit is a complex character. ... The Grandmother has a better sense of right from wrong than the Misfit. The Grandmother embodies the good in life while the Misfit embodies the evil. ... " She seemed to have been trying to appeal to the religious side she assumed the Misfit had, but little did she know that the Misfit already had a clear viewpoint on religion. ... The Misfit doesn't believe in the mercy of God or man and is not necessarily cruel hearted but is oblivious to the fact that killing people is wrong. ...
She felt readers "had a really sentimental attachment to The Misfit. ... Then her pronouncement "You're the Misfit" seals their fate. ... Then the grandmother deals with The Misfit by appealing to his gentility. ... But when she wishes upon a Misfit, she is likely to be murdered. ... The grandmother dresses for accidents; The Misfit, for murders. ...
King Henry has been known as a wild misfit, and someone who has no regard for the world around him, as it is shown in Henry IV, Part I, and Henry IV, Part II. ... Pistol and his other chums are portrayed by Shakespeare as misfits and are meant to be away from the king, so he can rule effectively. ... After the English army was victorious at Harfluer, Henry tells his troops to treat the town with mercy, and marches away. ... Throughout Henry V Shakespeare has many moods, or themes brought up , leadership burdens of leadership, or good qualities of a good leader, just and unjust cause...
Removed from the reality of God's beauty and grace all around us, O'Connor's intentional use of stark violence is to uncover the deeper horror, the spiritual deformity of humanity because of its estrangement from God. Frustrated over reviews that describe her stories as horrific, O'Connor writes in ...
