Give a brief overview of O'Connor's life, using key points from the following
links via the EDSITEment-reviewed Internet Public
Library. Be sure to mention that O'Connor often is described as Southern
and Catholic, and that her recurring themes raise religious questions and
concerns. Note: Teachers might consider introducing this information
the day before students read the short story.
Once students have read and responded to the story at home, begin by asking
students to describe their immediate reaction to "A Good Man is Hard to Find."
Write down on the blackboard/whiteboard some of the responses to the story.
Next mention to students that this lesson on "A Good Man is Hard to Find"
will send them on a journey along with Bailey and his family.
After dividing students into small groups with access to a computer workstation,
ask student groups to "pack their bags" to join you on a Flannery O'Connor-inspired
journey. Focus their attention on the grandmother, who offers occasional observations
about the story's setting, characters, and events.
Note: This activity is best conducted in a classroom with 4-5 computer
workstations. Assign small groups of students to each workstation. You can
adjust the activity, however, according to your classroom configuration (e.g.,
single computer and projector).
The EDSITEment LaunchPad, Flannery
O'Connor: Journey through the South, Old and New, contains links to the
many websites that students will be visiting during the course of this lesson,
as well as similar instructions listed under the "Interactive Student Journey"
sections below. Students wishing to access the links and questions after this
class can return to the LaunchPad at any time.
2. The Southern Highway
Note: This section corresponds to section 1 of the student LaunchPad.
Point out to students that with today's developed highway and interstate
system, getting from point A to B in the U.S. makes for a fairly easy and
fun "road trip" (that is, if you leave at the right time to avoid traffic!).
Mention to students that in the 1950s, by contrast, the U.S.'s highway system
was just beginning to take shape, and family sedans were just beginning to
reach a middle
class market. As a result, family road-trip vacations soon followed. You
might also mention that the railroad system was in decline for domestic travel,
and air travel was still too expensive for most.
Inspire students to jump into a 1950
Buick Sedan, adjust the radio,
and join Bailey and his family for their road trip from Atlanta to Florida
[Buick images from the EDSITEment-reviewed Smithsonian Institution's National
Museum of American History's virtual exhibition "America
on the Move."]
Ask students to keep in mind the following passage from the story as they
navigate country roads and 1950s interstates:
She said she thought it was going to be a good day for driving,
neither too hot nor too cold, and she cautioned Bailey that the speed limit
was fifty-five miles an hour and that the patrolmen hid themselves behind
billboards and small clumps of trees and sped out after you before you had
a chance to slow down. She pointed out interesting details of the scenery:
Stone Mountain; the blue granite that in some places came up to both sides
of the highway; the brilliant red clay banks slightly streaked with purple;
and the various crops that made rows of green lace-work on the ground. The
trees were full of silver-white sunlight and the meanest of them sparkled.
The children were reading comic magazines and their mother had gone back to
sleep.
Interactive Student Journey
Today's starting point? Atlanta. Destination? Florida. Although the family in
"A Good Man is Hard to Find" lives in Atlanta, their journey to Florida takes
them along the relatively new highways of the 1950s, including rural country
roads.
The following images of Georgia highways and rural roads can give you a
better idea of highway and country road travel. Though these images are from
the 1930s and 1940s, the highways and rural roads would have been similar
to those described in "A Good Man is Hard to Find." At the EDSITEment-reviewed
American Memory website's Farm
Security Administration-Office of War Information Collection, examine
the following images (found by searching keywords: "Georgia highways"):
Now view the following images (found by searching "rural roads Georgia"):
Next turn to the EDSITEment-reviewed Smithsonian Institution's National
Museum of American History's virtual exhibition
"America on the Move." Explore in particular the following sections of the
exhibition:
Teacher "Pit Stop":
Ask students the following questions:
- Although the 1950s highways are not what they are today, how are they
different from the 1930s/1940s rural roads in Georgia?
- What other technological, economic, and social changes did the U.S. highway
system enable in the 1950s?
Now point out the following passage, which opens the story:
THE GRANDMOTHER didn't want to go to Florida. She wanted to visit
some of her connections in east Tennessee and she was seizing at every chance
to change Bailey's mind. Bailey was the son she lived with, her only boy.
He was sitting on the edge of his chair at the table, bent over the orange
sports section of the Journal. "Now look here, Bailey," she said, "see here,
read this," and she stood with one hand on her thin hip and the other rattling
the newspaper at his bald head. "Here this fellow that calls himself The Misfit
is aloose from the Federal Pen and headed toward Florida and 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. I couldn't
answer to my conscience if I did."
Bailey didn't look up from his reading so she wheeled around then and
faced the children's mother, a young woman in slacks, whose face was as
broad and innocent as a cabbage and was tied around with a green head-kerchief
that had two points on the top like rabbit's ears. She was sitting on the
sofa, feeding the baby his apricots out of a jar. "The children have been
to Florida before," the old lady said. "You all ought to take them somewhere
else for a change so they would see different parts of the world and be
broad. They never have been to east Tennessee."
Ask students the following questions:
- How would you characterize the grandmother?
- The grandmother thinks that taking the Georgia-based family to east Tennessee
would make them "broad" by "see[ing] different parts of the world." Based
on what you know from your own Web-based road trip so far, what do you think
of this passage? What is O'Connor's tone here in her characterization of
the grandmother?
- How does O'Connor's humor come through in this passage?
3. The 1950s South
Note: this section corresponds to section 2 of the student LaunchPad.
Teacher "Pit Stop":
Point out to students that Flannery O'Connor is identified as a Southern writer.
Mention to students that this segment of their journey will prompt them to think
about the Old and New South as O'Connor presents "The South" at large throughout
"A Good Man is Hard to Find." Ask student groups to jot down key adjectives
to describe the South in their notebooks.
Now refer students to the following passage from the story:
"In my time," said the grandmother, folding her thin veined fingers,
"children were more respectful of their native states and their parents and
everything else. People did right then. Oh look at the cute little pickaninny!"
she said and pointed to a Negro child standing in the door of a shack. "Wouldn't
that make a picture, now?" she asked and they all turned and looked at the
little Negro out of the back window. He waved.
"He didn't have any britches on," June Star said.
"He probably didn't have any," the grandmother explained. "Little niggers
in the country don't have things like we do. If I could paint, I'd paint
that picture," she said.
Interactive Student Journey
You are looking out the window of the sedan when the grandmother points out
"the cute little pickaninny!" This is an offensive, slang term to describe an
African-American child. Additionally, the grandmother uses the offensive, racist
term "niggers."
Consider the following questions, keeping in mind the historical context
of O'Connor's story:
- What does the grandmother's use of these words suggest about the racial
views she holds?
- What does the grandmother mean when she says, "In my time" at the beginning
of this passage?
- How does the grandmother represent the South's earlier times by using
this word?
Teacher Pit Stop:
Now is a good time to discuss the fact that the grandmother and her views are
outdated, but reflective of the racial tensions during the time the story was
written. Note that the grandmother wants the family to visit a plantation house
along their journey, but that the plantation house is not where she remembered
it to be. Ask students the following questions:
- "How does O'Connor use the grandmother to distinguish between the "Old"
and "New South"?
- What is symbolic about the fact that the "phantom" plantation is just
a figment of the grandmother's bad memory?
Point out to students that the 1950s South experienced a major turning point
in African-American history. Note that 1954 marked both O'Connor's writing of
"A Good Man is Hard to Find" and the landmark Brown v. the Board of Education
U.S. Supreme Court decision to end racial segregation (practices known collectively
as "Jim Crow Laws") supported by the 1896 Plessy
v. Ferguson case in which the Supreme Court ruled that "racially separate
facilities, if equal, did not violate the Constitution." Browse through the
EDSITEment-reviewed Smithsonian Institution's National
Museum of American History's virtual exhibition "Separate
is Not Equal: Brown v. Board of Education." Point out the "White
Only: Jim Crow in America" section of the exhibit, calling attention to
the advertising cards. Ask students to discuss the changes between
the "Old South" and the "New South." Remind them that historical change is a
process, and that radical, immediate change is rare. How does the family in
O'Connor's story reflect this idea?
Interactive Student Journey
While the grandmother's racial views seem outdated and racist to us now, O'Connor's
story reflects the complex and difficult relationships of the 1950s South. Change
was afoot not only in terms of race, but also in terms of gender, as roles for
and stereotypes of women are evolving at this time as well.
Go to the EDSITEment-reviewed American
Memory Project and examine the following images:
Teacher Pit Stop:
Compare the two images (both from Atlanta) of the women in the American Memory
posters. Now refer students to the following passage from the story:
The old lady settled herself comfortably, removing her white cotton
gloves and putting them up with her purse on the shelf in front of the back
window. The children's mother still had on slacks and still had her head tied
up in a green kerchief, but the grandmother had on a navy blue straw sailor
hat with a bunch of white violets on the brim and a navy blue dress with a
small white dot in the print. Her collars and cuffs were white organdy trimmed
with lace and at her neckline she had pinned a purple spray of cloth violets
containing a sachet. In case of an accident, anyone seeing her dead on the
highway would know at once that she was a lady.
Ask students the following questions:
- How do these images compare to O'Connor's descriptions of the mother and
the grandmother?
- What does the grandmother think of the "modern woman"? What are some differences
between the grandmother and the mother?
- Students might mention the differences in the way they are dressed
(for example, slacks v. dress/hat/gloves) or their values or behavior.
- What are some additional changes the grandmother observes?
- Though the story is told from the grandmother's point-of-view, does the
story reveal praise and/or criticism for both the mother and the grandmother?
How?
For a more extended overview of the 1950s in general, you can have students
browse the 1950s Timeline,
via American Crossroads Project,
a link from the EDSITEment-reviewed American
Studies at the University of Virginia).
4. Saved along the Highway
Note: this section corresponds to section 3 of the student LaunchPad.
Teacher Pit Stop:
Mention to students that Flannery O'Connor once said that, "while the South
is hardly Christ-centered, it is most certainly Christ-haunted" [From http://www.georgetown.edu/faculty/bassr/heath/syllabuild/iguide/oconnor.html
Via American Studies Web.] (44). Ask students the following questions:
- What might O'Connor mean when she says "Christ-haunted"? Why "Christ-haunted"
instead of "Christ-centered"?
- What passages of "A Good Man is Hard to Find" support O'Connor's claim
about the South?
Interactive Student Journey
Let's continue our journey through the "Christ-haunted" South. The plot
of "A Good Man is Hard to Find" ultimately is about being saved, literally and
figuratively, along a rural Southern road. Let's explore images of "Christ-haunted"
Georgia from the era between the Depression and WWII. Visit the EDSITEment-reviewed
Library of Congress American Memory's
"America from the Great Depression to WWII" Collection and browse these
images (found by searching the following keywords in one search: religious highway
signs Georgia):
[Note to teachers: extra images are listed so that if students are
in groups, different images may be assigned to each group]:
Teacher "Pit Stop":
Reminding students of the many religious signs along Georgia's highways and
country roads, point out that the story's title suggests a journey or quest
to "find" a "good man." Mention that the "quest" ends with the grandmother trying
to save herself by trying to "save" the Misfit. Now ask students the following
questions:
- Bailey's family literally sets out on a journey, the family vacation.
How does the road trip function as a metaphor or symbol of this journey?
- What might the road trip (and the specific images of the country road)
symbolize based on what you have learned from the story at large? [Note:
the road trip can symbolize many things, including the breakdown of Bailey's
family (consider the kids and their behavior), the passing of time from
the Old South to the New South, the journey for confirmation of Christ and
Christian living, the Misfit's failed journey of redemption, etc.]
Point out that today's interactive journey is coming to a close. To wrap up
the general discussion on the South, review the following excerpt from the assigned
reading "What We Talk
about When We Talk about the South" by Edward Ayers, dean and professor
of history at the University of Virginia and author of The Oxford Book of
the American South: Testimony, Memory, and Fiction and The Promise
of the New South: Life After Reconstruction:
Southern history bespeaks a place that is more complicated than
the stories we tell about it. Throughout its history, the South has been a
place where poverty and plenty have been thrown together in especially jarring
ways, where democracy and oppression, white and black, slavery and freedom,
have warred. The very story of the South is a story of unresolved identity,
unsettled and restless, unsure and defensive. The South, contrary to so many
words written in defense and in attack, was not a fixed, known, and unified
place, but rather a place of constant movement, struggle, and negotiation.[26]
[From American
Studies at the University of Virginia].
Observe that historian Ayers describes the South using "binaries," or contrasting
terms such as "democracy and oppression" and "white and black." Lead a class
discussion on "binaries," asking students to identify some "binaries" of the
South she presents in "A Good Man is Hard to Find." Begin to prepare a list,
which might include the following:
- Good/Evil
- Black/White
- Moral/Immoral
- Humor/Shocking
- "Saved"/Sinful
Note: "binaries" can be useful tools for discussion, but remember that
they often lack nuance. You even can ask students to describe the shortcomings
of the example "binaries." O'Connor's skill in presenting nuanced characters
is expansive, so while using binaries as a starting point is a useful exercise,
work with students to see how O'Connor's text both establishes and challenges
those binaries.
5. Humor v. "The Grotesque"
Mention to students that Flannery O'Connor's fiction often is labeled as "Southern
Gothic" or "Southern Grotesque." Responding to this genre designation, O'Connor's
once said that, "anything that comes out of the South is going to be called
grotesque by the northern reader, unless it is grotesque, in which case it is
going to be called realistic" (40).
Point out that O'Connor also is considered a humorous writer. Literary critic
Mark Steadman of Clemson University (SC) notes that, "Southern humor, like
much of the best southern writing in general, has been boisterous and physical,
often grotesque, and generally realistic" [From EDSITEment-reviewed Documenting
the American South's 'Humor
in Literature.'] Leading a discussion on the "binary," or convergence,
of O'Connor's humor v. "the grotesque, ask students the following questions:
- How would you define the words "gothic" and "grotesque"?
- What does O'Connor mean by "grotesque"?
- What elements of "A Good Man is Hard to Find" would you describe as "grotesque"?
- What elements of "A Good Man is Hard to Find" would you describe as humorous?
- What are the effects of O'Connor's being both humorous and grotesque in
"A Good Man is Hard to Find"?
Assessment
Option One: Who's the Real 'Misfit'?
The grandmother is a crucial character in the story. She is the one who wishes
to tour the plantation; she wants to bring the cat on the trip; and she upsets
the suitcase, which, in turn, frightens the cat, which causes the accident on
the dirt road. Though the family encounters the criminal "Misfit" and his cohorts,
one could argue that the grandmother herself is a "misfit"-both out of time
and out of place. Have students write a typed, three-page paper on the following
question, "How is the grandmother herself a misfit in the story?" Students should
support their argument with concrete, specific details from the story itself;
they also may use properly cited resources reviewed during class discussion.
Option Two: A Symbolic Family Road Trip?
Assign a typed, two- to three-page writing assignment in which students answer
the question, "What might the thwarted family road trip symbolize in O'Connor's
'A Good Man is Hard to Find?" Remind students to use evidence from the story
to support their argument. They also may use properly cited resources reviewed
during class discussion.
Option Three: Unfazed or shocked?
Collect the response papers at the end of class to review. Ask students to
write a formal, two-page journal entry on the question, "Did 'A Good Man is
Hard to Find' shock you, or were you unfazed by the ending?" Students should
elaborate why or why not.
Option Four: The Cultural Landscape of the South
Ask students to submit a paper examining the significance of the Southern
setting in O'Connor's story. Encourage them to use the primary source material
explored in this lesson to detail O'Connor's portrayal of the South.
Extending the Lesson
- Assign the O'Connor stories "The Life You Save Might be Your Own" and
"Good Country People" to provide a broader view of themes discussed in this
lesson. Using these lessons, you can highlight the changing representation
of women in more detail.
Selected EDSITEment Websites
Other Information
First use of a LaunchPad
Standards Alignment
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