Monday, February 21, 2011

What does the grandmother mean when she says, "Why you're one of my babies. You're one of my own children"?

O’Connor’s apocalyptic fiction attempts to show her readers their limitless need for God’s mercy. In "A Good Man is Hard to Find," she does this through the interaction of the grandmother and the Misfit. We would normally expect that a grandmother should represents goodness while a serial killer should represent evil. O’Connor, however, seems to hold precisely the reverse in this case. Similarly, we would expect the old woman to represent life and the Misfit death; again, O’Connor suggests the opposite, believing that life without spirituality is a living death, and through meeting the Misfit -- even though the meeting is fatal -- the old woman gains a chance of attaining salvation. In saying, "Why, you're one of my babies!" she recognizes his cosmic function. Like the old woman’s children, the Misfit has been raised without spirituality; and without spirituality, as the Misfit remarks himself, one might as well "enjoy the few minutes you got left the best way you can -- by killing somebody or burning down his house or doing some other meanness to him." In effect, the Misfit has said that if a person is not willing to accept God, then he or she might as well throw propriety to the winds, and go out and become a serial killer. In O’Connor’s view, to reject God’s love in small ways is just as sinful as rejecting his love in big ones, because without God there is no value system left. 

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