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March 5, 2006
Grandma's Moment of Clarity
O'Connor, ''A Good Man Is Hard to Find'' -- Jerz: American Lit II (EL 267)"Why you're one of my babies. You're on of my own children!"(29). We know that Misfit is not literally Grandma's child because "Bailey was the son she lived with, her only boy."(9) Is this a last-ditch (no pun intended) effort by Grandma to save her skin, is she in shock, or is she trying to manipulate something else? I think that it's a combination of all three: 1)She wants to keep Misfit talking; 2)She's in shock becasue despite the whole family, including children, going into the woods with precisely the same # of gun blasts, she can only call out Bailey's name, and 3)Her modus operandi is to be a manipulator, albeit unsuccessful. What a taut little tale!
Posted by BrendaChristeleit at March 5, 2006 2:22 PM
Comments
"last-ditch (no pun intended)"
Ooh! That one hurt.
You're right, the grandmother's default mode is manipulation. The Misfit senses this, which is why he says she'd have been a good woman if she always lived her life as if she were about to die.
Posted by: Dennis G. Jerz at March 5, 2006 5:31 PM
Thank you for clearing this up. I could not understand what the line meant. It meant that she would be a good woman if she lived everyday like she were to die.
I definately agree with this. The woman was a manipulated atleast she tried. She really never won with it. I think that the grandmother's comment of "son" is only her last cry. She is something else. Even just about to die, she cannot be without manipulation. Does she really think it works? It is that that got her and her family in the predicament in the first place!
Posted by: OnileeSmith at March 13, 2006 7:35 PM