“You can’t win,” he said. “You can’t win,” and he wiped his sweating red face off with a gray handkerchief. “These days you don’t know who to trust,” he said. “Ain’t that the truth?” (O'Connor 7).
This quote is from “A Good Man is Hard to Find” by Flannery O'Connor and I believe that this single quote displays a lesson to be learned after reading this story. You never know who you can and cannot trust! Throughout its reading I noticed a couple things starting with how the grandmother was the main character and she was someone who wanted to be the center of attention. For example, she wanted to go to Tennessee opposed to Florida and she tried to change everybody’s minds, she also dressed as if she was better than everybody else, and she brought the cat because she wanted to not considering the others opinion. Another event that caught my attention was that the grandmother was constantly bringing up “the misfit.” Before they left the house and to the man at the tower. Along the way they got into an accident, this is the point in the story where everything started to speed up. Referring back to my quote, I believe somewhat that the grandmother could not be trusted because she lied about the “house with a secret panel” (O’Connor 9), and did not tell Bailey that the house was actually in Tennessee and not Georgia which are the reasons for the accident in the first place. Finally, the family probably thought the next car they saw would have people in it willing to help so the grandmother waved them down not knowing they would all be killed. Again you never know who to trust! One question I do have is why didn’t Bailey try to save his family?
Kristy,
ReplyDeleteTo answer your question why Bailey did not try to save his family, he was a weak man lacking leadership ability. If he were a good leader who does not want to go to Tennessee because the grandmother wanted to go there neither to Florida to avoid meeting the Misfit, he should have decided for a compromise and go somewhere else. Mostly, the driver decides where to go; therefore, he could have said he is not going to see some old house. I would not necessarily say they got into a car accident because the selfish grandmother wanted to see the house. It was a misfortune that could have happened anywhere else along the way.
Hana Pasekova
I agree with Hana about Bailey, but I also think that it could've been because he was just an apathetic character. Even when his children were being disrespectful and kicking his chair while driving, etc. he didn't take the timme to stop them or reprimand them for what they were doing. He didn't take the time to argue with the grandmother when he didn't want to do what she suggested like going to the house and then at the end he just ended up yelling at her and making the grandmother cry.
ReplyDeleteKristy, do you think that anyone in the story does trust? If so, who?
ReplyDelete