The Wrong Path

Note: The spelling errors in the quotes are not careless errors on my part; they appear in the story as such.

Of all the factors present in our lives, none can so completely affect or alter our final outcome as much as the element of choice. For centuries, choice has been an object of debate—what is free will, what is destiny, and can they coexist? If we choose the wrong path, will there be any way to retrace our steps? Authors have tackled such questions in great multitudes. In “A Good Man is Hard to Find”, Flannery O’Conner gives us a small glimpse of a man named Misfit and where his choices have led him. However, what originally seems to be just an account of an emotionally disturbed criminal can, on deeper inspection, be viewed as a parable about the affect choice has on our lives.

The Misfit first comes in contact with the main characters after they have had a car accident that leaves them stranded on a deserted road in Georgia. After a few tense minutes of strange conversation, the Grandmother screams that she recognizes the Misfit as the murderer from the newspapers. Unfortunately for the family, her outburst might be the reason they are all killed in the end, as is hinted when the Misfit says, “but it would have been better for all of you, lady, if you hadn’t of reckernized me” (84). Instantly, the story’s pace accelerates. Misfit’s accomplices take the father and the son out to the woods to kill them while the Grandmother, who seems panicked and unable to think clearly, starts shouting at the Misfit that he is a good man. He responds nonchalantly, “Nome, I ain’t a good man” (100), leading the reader to wonder if his morality is something he’s forced himself to accept. His easy response sounds almost automatic, pre-rehearsed so that he could give it quickly, without having to think about the deeper meaning. His acceptance that he is not a good man is further illustrated when he denies Jesus and declares, “I don’t want no hep…. I’m doing all right by myself” (122); he is stubborn because he doesn’t want to admit that there is another way to live his life. His quick dismissal of there being any good in him at all—any shred of evidence of another side to him—shows just how much he is trying to ignore a part of himself. To acknowledge that he has a good side, or at least some good in him, would be to acknowledge that he had once made a choice—he could have followed his heart in either direction, good or bad. He doesn’t want to regret his choice to live his life by the darker side of his soul, and so he denies that he ever had a choice by proclaiming that there was never any good in him.

Not until the end of the story does the Misfit finally allude to having a choice in life. The grandmother is desperately trying to tell him to pray to Jesus in order to find the good in himself, but the Misfit seems almost lost in his own world. His first mention of a choice is when he tells the grandmother, “if [Jesus] did what He said, then it’s nothing for you to do but throw away everything and follow Him, and if He didn’t, then it’s nothing for you to do but enjoy the few minutes you got left the best way you can” (135). In a sense, he’s shifted the blame to Jesus; if he had any proof that Jesus had truly raised the dead, then of course he would follow Jesus and be a good man. Because he has no proof, however, he believes one’s faith determines how they will live their life. He is trying to convince himself that he doesn’t believe Jesus raised the dead, which is why he is living his life in “meanness” (135). His uncertainty becomes perfectly clear, however, when he says to the grandmother, “It ain’t right that I wasn’t there because if I had been there, I would of known…. and I wouldn’t be like I am now” (137). Through the quote, the Misfit accidentally expresses his wish that he had solid proof of Jesus raising the dead because the proof would have given him a reason to be a good man. His emotions are bursting out of him right then; he has likely forgotten that he’s talking to the grandmother at all. He seems like he has tried to forget that he once had a choice and that he personally elected to follow a life of meanness, but the grandmother’s persisting that he is a good man has forced his regret to the surface. He is so lost in his self-confession that it is not until the grandmother touches his shoulder that he is snapped back to reality and shoots her. After his sudden awakening, he immediately puts his guard back up, forcing himself to be numb to his own acts of meanness. However, his final declaration of regret, which only us readers can understand for what it is, occurs when Bobby Lee says that he sees “[shooting the grandmother] every minute of her life” (141) as fun. The Misfit retorts, “Shut up, Bobby Lee…. It’s no real pleasure in life” (368), an inference to his reluctant belief that if he had chosen to be a good man, not a murderer, he might have actually found some “real pleasure in life” (368). (917 words)