A Good Man Is Hard to Find

by O'Connor, Flannery; Asals, Frederick

• ISBN13: 9780813519777
• ISBN10: 0813519772
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1993-09-01
• Publisher: Rutgers Univ Pr

Summary

A Good Man Is Hard to Findis Flannery O'Connor's most famous and most discussed story. O'Connor herself singled it out by making it the title piece of her first collection and the story she most often chose for readings or talks to students. It is an unforgettable tale, both riveting and comic, of the confrontation of a family with violence and sudden death. More than anything else O'Connor ever wrote, this story mixes the comedy, violence, and religious concerns that characterize her fiction. This casebook for the story includes an introduction by the editor, a chronology of the author's life, the authoritative text of the story itself, comments and letters by O'Connor about the story, critical essays, and a bibliography. The critical essays span more than twenty years of commentary and suggest several approaches to the storyÐÐformalistic, thematic, deconstructionistÐÐ ­­all within the grasp of the undergraduate, while the introduction also points interested students toward still other resources. Useful for both beginning and advanced students, this casebook provides an in-depth introduction to one of America's most gifted modern writers. The contributors are Michael O. Bellamy, Hallman B. Bryant, William S. Doxey, J. Peter Dyson, Madison Jones, W. S. Marks, III, Carter Martin, William J. Scheick, Mary Jane Schenck, and J. O. Tate.

Table of Contents

Introduction	3	(24)
Frederick Asals
Chronology	27	(4)
A Good Man Is Hard to Find	31	(144)
Flannery O'Connor
Background to the Story
On Her Own Work	55	(6)
Flannery O'Connor
Letter to John Hawkes and Letter to a Professor of English	61	(6)
Flannery O'Connor
Critical Essays
A Good Source Is Not So Hard to Find	67	(6)
J. O. Tate
Reading the Map in ``A Good Man Is Hard to Find''	73	(10)
Hallman B. Bryant
Advertisements for Grace: Flannery O'Connor's ``A Good Man Is Hard to Find''	83	(12)
W. S. Marks, III
A Dissenting Opinion of Flannery O'Connor's ``A Good Man Is Hard to Find''	95	(8)
William S. Doxey
Everything Off Balance: Protestant Election in Flannery O'Connor's ``A Good Man Is Hard to Find''	103	(10)
Michael O. Bellamy
Flannery O'Connor's ``A Good Man Is Hard to Find'' and G. K. Chesterton's Manalive	113	(6)
William J. Scheick
A Good Man's Predicament	119	(8)
Madison Jones
``The Meanest of Them Sparkled'': Beauty and Landscape in Flannery. O'Connor's Fiction	127	(12)
Carter Martin
Cats, Crime, and Punishment: The Mikado's Pitti-Sing in ``A Good Man Is Hard to Find''	139	(26)
J. Peter Dyson
Deconstructed Meaning in [``A Good Man Is Hard to Find'']	165	(10)
Mary Jane Schenck
Selected Bibliography	175	(4)
Permissions	179