SOURCE: "A Good Man's Predicament," in The Southern Review, Vol. XX, No. 4, Autumn, 1984, pp. 836-41.

In the following essay, Jones offers an alternative to O'Connor's interpretation of the controversial conclusion of "A Good Man Is Hard to Find."

Flannery O'Connor's "A Good Man Is Hard to Find" has been for the past decade or more a subject of virtually countless critical readings. Any brilliant work of fiction resists a single interpretation acceptable to everyone, but judging by the variousness and irreconcilability of so many readings of "A Good Man" one might conclude, as R. V. Cassili does, that like the work of Kafka the story "may not be susceptible to exhaustive rational analysis." The suggestion, I believe, would be quite apt if applied to a good many O'Connor stories. Not this one, however. If there are in fact authorial lapses, moments when the reader's gaze is led a...