A Good Man

This was an odd story. The grandmother was not a very likable character, as we see in story— she is a racist and a snob, to put it simply. She has a very selfish streak, and was only concerned about her own pleasures and wants. Just the fact that she brought along a cat when her son didn’t want her to irritated me. She felt as though she had the right to do as she pleased. When the family had an accident, thanks in no small part to the grandmother, her first reaction was to complain of an injury, an attempt to throw anyone off the track of the missing house. She didn’t ask about anyone else, especially the missing mother and baby. Astounding. When they are confronted by the strangers, the grandmother recognizes the “Misfit” and is arrogant (and stupid) enough to tell him so. When it becomes clear that they are in danger, the grandmother pleads not for her family, but for her own life. One by one her family is killed, and yet she still begs for her own life. At that point, I was thinking, why? I would be begging to go with them. In desperation she asks the Misfit to pray, and he tells her of his conflicted religious issues, and in the last minute she reaches out to him like he is her son. The misfit shoots her. I haven’t quite decided what happened here. Was she confused, or did she think that he, even as a sinner was a child of God? I don’t know. The Misfit wasn’t confused by her rhetoric though, as he said in the second to last line, “She would have been a good woman, if it had been somebody to shoot her every minute of her life”. He is saying that not until she was faced with death did she extend any offer of kindness to anyone. I think the title is a bit of a play on words, as it almost should say, “A Good Person is Hard to Find”.