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March 09, 2006

Predicament

O'Connor, ''A Good Man Is Hard to Find'' -- Jerz: American Lit II (EL 267)

""Listen," Bailey began, "we're in a terrible predicament! Nobody realizes what this is," and his voice cracked."

What is the predicament exactly? Bailey may be verbalizing his own inability to act as a man around his mother in addition to his realization that they were all going to be killed. He is helped up by Hiram "as if he were assisting an old man" and just before he enters the woods, he "turned and supported himself against a gray naked pine trunk". He calls to his mother and tells her to wait because he'll be back. Perhaps the gray naked pine trunk is his mother whom he has been leaning against all these years. He doesn't call to his wife, nor she to him.

Posted by JenniferDiFulvio at March 9, 2006 04:24 PM

Comments

Jennifer
You have a good point and from the beginning of the story O'Connor lets us know that his mother lives with him and that she goes everywhere they go. The little girl said in regards to her staying home and she said she's too noisy. Basically I think that Bailey should have kept his first decision and not driven up to where his mother said. Maybe they would not have died. But the grandmother already realized before they left that they would not make it back home. O'Connor pointed that out in the beginning of the story. Was shocked when they were trapped by the "misfits" and killed at the end.

Posted by: LisaRandolph at March 10, 2006 10:49 AM

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