The short story "A Good Man Is Hard To Find" by Flannery O'Connor is a real downer. Two people who couldn't be more different find each other and annoy each other to pieces, until one shoots the other.
Lady grandmother, as I like to call her, certainly is a jaded heart. She is in denial about her unhappiness, as it seems a lot of religious people are. As long as Jesus is around, nothing can be all too bad, right?
But what is it that Lady grandmother is looking for? Salvation? And what is it that the Misfit is looking for? The truth? Authentic faith? He has no faith in humanity, and neither has Lady grandmother, who doesn't believe in any good men around. Yet she tries to convince the Misfit that he is a good man - for her own good, to be "saved" in the OTHER way (meaning NOT TO DIE). Because one thing is clear, Lady grandmother was certainly not ready to die, even though she made jokes about wanting to 'die a lady'. She died a pretender, in my opinion. I believe she had good intentions, but many also were totally selfish. Her idea of the perfect world was the past. The Misfit's idea of the perfect world was something non-existent. He thought the world was a mean place, and I believe that he thought that Lady grandmother was a mean person as well. He shot her out of exhaustion, not because he felt good doing it. He seems like a sociopath who loves to screw with his own head. He's a philosopher, but in a twisted way. He wonders about the meaning of life and probably has a higher IQ than anybody else in this story. A lot of serial killers are proven to be of high intelligence. It makes one think that people who have an intellect above average just don't "fit" in this world, because it is a world of ignorance and materialism.
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