'Jesus was the only One that ever raised the dead,' The Misfit continued, 'and he shouldn't have done it. He thrown everything off balance. If He did what He said, then it's nothing for you to do but throw away everything and follow Him. I wasn't there so I can't say He didn't,' The Misfit said. 'I wisht I had of been there,' he said, hitting the ground with his fist. 'It ain't right I wasn't there because if I had been there I would of known. if I had of been there I would of known and I wouldn't be like I am now.' (O'Connor 1390-1391).
With these lines in the short story "A Good Man is Hard to Find," Flannery O'Connor expresses the difficult questions that a non-Christian might feel about the faith. O'Connor was born in Georgia in 1925, the only child in a Catholic family. Shortly after graduating from college, O'Connor learned that she suffered from lupus, the autoimmune disease that had killed her father ten years earlier. The realization of her own impending death, the spiritual heritage and etiquette of the South, and her strong Catholic faith are reflected in the dark humor, grotesque characters and situations, and religious themes of her works. Her characters often experience horrible moments that lead to an epiphany that reveals their goodness. .
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The belief in miracles and goodness in people is something that we all want to experience, but for many people these are impossible to accept because they cannot be confirmed with absolute certainty and require blind faith. To those with faith like O'Connor's, the difference between right and wrong is defined for them by the rules and traditions of their religion. To people without religious beliefs, right and wrong must be determined individually from life experiences and the influence of culture and society. These two sources for moral direction account for the differences between O'Connor's interpretation of story and the skeptical misinterpretation that Stephen Bandy presents in his article "'One of My Babies': The Misfit and the Grandmother.
