Of Mice and Men
...-paragraph analyses suggest that O'Connor's plan was to show the dysfunctionalism of real life (Tobin). They also suggest that Grandma is a symbol for changes that need to be made in society, and that her death is the result of failure to make those changes (Smith). Another interesting feature of this sight is an internet class discussion about the story. The discussion does not offer a lot of answers, but it does raise some interesting questions, such as: what is the significance of the family dying while trying to find a lost treasure, and what is the meaning of the final exchange between the Misfit and Grandmother? Most of the analyses said that the story simply depicted common, dysfunctional, American life, and that the final exchange between Grandma and the Misfit was just the ramblings of a frightened woman. This interpretation fits how O'Connor saw her own work. She refused to be classified as an "interleckchul," and hated that English survey classes took her stories as "literary specimens to be dissected." She claimed that when stories are broken down into small parts, understanding of the story as a whole is lost (Mitchell) "A Good Man is Hard to Find" is consistent with Mary Flannery O'Connor's view that contemporary society was drastically changing for the worse. O'Connor's obvious displeasure with society at the time has often been attributed to her Catholic religion, her studies in the social science field, and the fact that the celebrated lifestyles of the elite southern whites were "Gone with the Wind." Evidence of society's "demise" is woven into the story, and presented through an interesting generation gap. The grandmother is representative of godliness and Christianity which O'Connor apparently believed to be more prevalent in the "glamorous" Old South: The old woman settled herself comfortably, removing her white cotton gloves and putting them up with her purse on the shelf in front of the back window. The children's mother still had on slacks and still had her head tied up in a green kerchief but the grandmother had on 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 collar and cuffs were white organdy trimmed with lace, and at her neckline she had pinned a purple spray of cloth violets containing a sachet. In case...