Socratic Questions: A good man is hard to find- O'Connor

1. CLOSE-ENDED QUESTION:  What was the old lady wearing on the trip to Florida?
2. OPEN-ENDED QUESTION: Why does the old lady continue to tell the "Misfit" about Jesus?
3. WORLD CONNECTION QUESTION: Is the world better or worse than it was in the time of the old lady and her family?
4. UNIVERSAL THEME/ CORE QUESTION: What causes people to be harsh and cruel?
5. LITERARY ANALYSIS QUESTION: What is the syntax of the story and how does it affect the mood and anticipation of it?


1. The old lady was wearing  "...a navy blue straw sailor hat with a bunch of white violets on the brim and a navy blue dress with a small white dot in the print. Her collars and cuffs were white organdy trimmed with lace and at her neckline she had pinned a purple spray of cloth violets containing a sachet" (O'Connor 2). This quote basically describes exactly what the old lady was wearing.

2. The old lady continues to tell the misfit about Jesus thinking that he is a good man on the inside, and she doesn't want him to kill her. She is also very lost at some points she can't even remember what she was thinking or talking about. For example O'Connor writes at one point, "Maybe He didn't raise the dead, the old lady mumbled, not knowing what she was saying and feeling so dizzy that she sank down in the ditch with her legs twisted under her"( O'Connor 13). This is the quote showing that half the time she didn't know what she was saying and how she is talking about Jesus. 

3. The world could be a better or worse place depending on how you see it. There are many people that would say it is a lot worse today, that something like the family being killed is no big deal.
For example in one point of the story O'Connor writes,"A good man is hard to find," Red Sammy said. "Everything is getting terrible. I remember the day you could go off and leave your screen door unlatched. Not no more"(5).Others would say that this is worse than today. That there are more rules and more precautions to keep people from doing bad things. So it just depends on how a person views life.  4. There are many reasons that cause people to be harsh and cruel. One way is people do what they have seen before. Just like the "Misfit" in the story who told the lady of all the horrible things he had seen when he says
"seen a man burnt alive oncet" (O'Connor 11). This quote demonstrates how the misfit had been through some bad events. This causes people to have these awful thoughts in their minds, and many times causes them to act in the same way.   5. The syntax of the story is written in a way that the reader reads line by line, little scripts to see what is happening. It is all in little pieces which causes that anticipation for the reader to see what is happening, and gives a larger affect on the script and what the character is saying. For example O'Connor writes...

"Because you're a good man!" the grandmother said at once.

"Yes'm, I suppose so," Red Sam said as if he were struck with this answer" (4).

This shows how the author writes to emphasize important things like what the character is saying. It also helps the reader tell what each character is saying and how they say it which helps to cause more anticipation for the story.