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Literary Elements in A Good Man is Hard to FInd

            Flannery O"Connor's "A Good Man is Hard to Find" emphasizes narrative techniques to bring to life the story of a family from Georgia traveling on vacation to Florida. Her uses of omniscience point of view, foreshadowing, and irony truly make "A Good Man is Hard to Find" a intriguing story.
             From the beginning O"Connor lets us know whose story this is in the first two lines, "The grandmother didn't want to go to Florida. She wanted to visit some of her connections in east Tennesse and she was seizing at every chance to change Bailey's mind." This alone sets the tone of the story. It lets the reader know not only the point of view, but foreshadows the tragedy later to come. She is giving us background information about what happens just before the story starts that only an omniscient view would know. She limits this point of view, however, to the grandmother and continues to do so throughout the beginning and some later portions of the story.
             However, O"Connor's usage of omniscient point of view is actually harder to distinguish later in the story. She changes her word usage crossing from total omniscient to limited omniscient. Using lines such as "She didn't intend for the cat to be left alone in the house for three days because he would miss her too much and she was afraid he might brush against one of the gas burners and accidently asphyxiate himself." makes the reader believe O"Connor is using a limited omniscient view told from the grandmother only. However, later in the story O"Connor uses lines such as "They all sat down in the ditch, except the children, to recover from the shock. They were all shaking." This makes the reader think O"Connor is using a total omniscient view.
             O"Connor's uses of both totally omniscient and limited omniscient narrators telling a story from the grandmother's eyes. It allows us to see the story as it unfolds, but limits it to the grandmother's point of view on many occasions.


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