Today's society is a clash of ideas and people from all walks of life and as diverse in their thinking as grains of sand on the beach. This depiction of a diverse society is so vivid in Flannery O'Connor's short story “A Good Man is Hard to Find.” The characters in the story may represent a functioning society in which each person brings to light a specific negative trait of society, but no other name than the one given to the escaping convict strikes the very soul of each reader. Comparing the characters in the story “A Good Man is Hard to Find” with society and analyzing the term Misfit as it reflects today's society. Every character in O'Connor's tale brings to the surface the bitter way society works today. Take for example the grandmother, who shows how manipulative society can be when things don't go as they should throughout the story, the grandmother manipulates her way of stopping the journey and getting into trouble and even when she knows she is lost she holds out her hand and surprises everyone by trying to take the prisoner's side “Because you are one of my children. You are one of my children!" (O'Connor 238-248). This quote is. A direct representation of how manipulative the grandmother can be in the story and what society is like in many ways today. Society will manipulate anything from news to information, to better fit a cause and the excuse given is that it is done to improve civilization The mother in the story is a nameless figure with very little description and almost no voice. It is a bitter reminder of how society views some women are seen as a permanent stature of a house but not necessarily a figure in society. The boys, both very loud and annoying, portray a selfish, rude, almost ignorant way of life like Jo...... middle of paper. ......t that sometimes doesn't fit crimes like the Misfit in the story says it best when he states, "Why can't I make everything I've done wrong fit everything I've suffered punishment " (O'Connor 238-248). Flannery O'Connor sends a chilling message by capturing the core of civilization in just a few lines. The Misfit in the story is none other than any other college student trying to find themselves, or someone who takes the wrong path somewhere in life. However, the truth is that we all have a little of each character in us, even the Misfit, if not the talent to dream. It is sympathy towards the value of life as it states “there is no real pleasure in life” (O’Connor 238-248). Works Cited O'Connor, Flannery. ""A good man is hard to find."" Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and Writing, 5th edition. Ed. Kennedy, XJ and Gioia, Dana. New York: Pearson/Longman, 2007. Print.