9/6 Reading Response Journal

“I remember the day you could go off and leave your screen door unlatched. Not no more (O’Conner, 8).”

This quote stuck to me while reading O’Conner’s short story because it rings true to contemporary society. We hear a lot in the news these days, and much like the grandmother in A Good Man is Hard to Find, we reminisce about a time when parents allowed kids to be out of the house for hours. We may yearn for those days, but morality makes us take them for granted. Morality and its role in society is one of the recurring themes in A Good Man is Hard to Find. O’Conner illustrates these themes with the distinctive Southern Gothic style and making reference to Margaret Mitchell’s epic and iconic Civil War-era romance novel, Gone with the Wind. This is no mere coincidence on O’Conner’s part. Gone with the Wind is a novel that deals with the dying ideals of the Old South, in which ethics and morals were as much a part of society as cotton plantations and slavery.

This short story was a lovely piece of literature, and I was engrossed in the story from start to finish. It raised questions about society that we continue to raise to this day, and that will continue to make this short story timeless.