"A Good Man is Hard to Find" is a short story by Flannery O'Connor that depicts the .
tragic end of a family that consists of a father (Bailey), a mother, their children (June Star .
and John Wesley), a baby, and the main character, the Grandmother. The family goes on a .
vacation together but sadly they never make it back. Instead they all end up as murder .
victims of a criminal known as The Misfit. The end is gruesome and initially seems .
shocking but in actuality the story is full of foreshadowing that hints at the inevitable death .
of the family. O'Connor uses dialogue, objects, and figurative language in setting and .
scenery to foreshadow the death of the family. .
Throughout the story there are clues within the dialogue as to what will happen to the .
family later on. As the story starts out, the family is planning on going to Florida for a .
vacation. Everyone is happy with this decision except for the grandmother. She would .
much rather go to Tennessee and to pursuade Bailey to change his mind she stresses the .
fact that there is a dangerous criminal known as The Misfit who escaped from the Federal .
Pen and is now headed toward Florida. She tells Bailey, "You read here what it says he .
did to these people. Just you read it. I wouldn't take my children in any direction with a .
criminal like that aloose in it" (266). This is the first instance of foreshadowing in the .
story. The next comes when the little girl, June Star, makes a comment about the .
grandmother. She says the grandmother "has to go everywhere we go" (267) which tells .
you the grandmother will come to the same horrible end as the family. The next day as the .
family begins their trip the narrator describes the grandmother's appearance. She was .
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dressed in her Sunday best with a pretty hat and white gloves. The narrator says, "In case .
of an accident, anyone seeing her dead on the highway would know at once that she was a .
lady" (267).
