“A Good Man is Hard to Find”

The Grandmother demonstrates racial and class prejudice through her words and actions. She is vain and selfish, and she believes that good character is a result of coming from "good people," an important concept in O'Connor's fiction. When she sees an African-American child without any clothes, she exclaims, "Oh look at the cute little pickaninny'" She continues, "Wouldn't that make a picture, now?" When her granddaughter comments on the child's lack of clothes, the Grandmother says, "He probably didn't have any___Little niggers in the country don't have things like we do." Believing that she came from a good family and from a time when "People did right," the Grandmother possesses a false sense of self-righteousness. She tells Red Sammy, a restaurant owner, that she believes that the United States' problems can be blamed on Europe. She says "the way Europe acted you would think we were made of money." In her ignorance of others' lifestyles and points of view, the Grandmother is one of O'Connor's numerous characters who flaunt their prejudice. Early in her encounter with the Misfit, she tries to flatter him, telling him that he does not look "common," and therefore could not be a "bad" person. A lifetime of prejudicial attitudes is erased, however, at the end of the story when she realizes her helplessness and the fact that discriminatory views such as hers are related to monstrous behavior like the Mistfit's. This moment is encapsulated in her epiphany: "Why you're one of my babies. You're one of my own children!"