Anthology of Ideas

In Flannery O’ Connor’s short story “A Good Man is Hard to Find” a typical Georgia family go on vacation to Florida, but are murdered by an escaped convict named “The Misfit. In the following quote the protagonist explains why he calls himself “The Misfit.”

Jesus thrown everything off balance. It was the same case with Him as with me except he hadn’t committed any crime and they could prove I committed one because they had the papers on me…of course…they never shown me my papers. That’s why I sign myself now. I said long ago, you get a signature and sign everything you do and keep a copy of it . Then you’ll know what you done and you can hold up the crime to the punishment and see do they match and in the end you’ll have something to prove you ain’t been treated right. I call myself “the Misfit” because I can’t make what all I done fit what all I gone through in punishment.

The quote can be taken to mean many things, but there are two possibilities that are the most convincing.Either “The Misfit” was not guilty of a crime when he was punished or was indeed guilty and did deserve the punishment, but, as a psychopath generally does, he reasoned that his crime was not a “real” crime.

The most obvious option is the first one which, if you know Flannery O’Connor’s writing, makes it the most questionable. The Misfit says that when he was sent to the penitentiary he was “buried alive.” Because the atmosphere of a penitentiary in the time the story is set (1940’s rural America) was like that of a medieval dungeon—men would be sentenced to prison for years to live with abuse guards and inmates alike and suffer the mental trauma of living in a stone box—often men would come out worse than they went in, and the effects on a innocent man would be compounded even further. The Misfit never admits to committing a crime, but he also never denies it. This can be explained away by assuming that he was not actually guilty of a crime, but spent years in prison with people telling him he was guilty. Eventually, this would have worn down his own mental defenses and convinced him that he was guilty; however, his inability to name this crime could be his way of denying a crime took place while appeasing the”head doctors” who would do their best to convince him of his guilt.

However, some psychopaths would do anything to convince themselves that they did not commit a crime. In the very beginning of the story, the grandmother reads a news article and comments that her son should read “what it says [The Misfit] did to these people” and comments that “I couldn’t take my children [anywhere]…with a criminal like that loose”, so it seems that The Misfit is not innocent, but a rather vicious killer. Further, The Misfit comments “[it] ain’t right I wasn’t there [when Jesus raised the dead] because if I had been there I would have known [if it was possible to raise people from the dead and] I wouldn’t be like I am now.” He did not really think murder was a crime because death is the end and there is no heaven or hell. He also mentions that he was an undertaker for a time, and says to the grandmother that “there was never a body that gave the undertaker a tip.” This (aside from being part of Flannery O’Connor’s “black”humor) is his way of rationalizing what he is doing: he is just an undertaker.

Another piece of evidence that suggest he is guilty is his comment that “Jesus thrown everything off balance,” which could be taken as Jesus was innocent but people said he was guilty, and punished him as such. The Misfit acted in a calm and dispassionate manner until he began talking about religion and forgiveness, so he may have been innocent of the crimes he was punished for, and sorry for the crimes he had committed after escaping. However, this comment can be taken to mean many things, including that Jesus allowed the thief on the cross to be forgiven of his sins and made him innocent rather than guilty, but this leads to the possibility that The Misfit was indeed guilty of his original crimes, but in The Misfit’s mind he was not guilty because Jesus made him innocent again.

The biggest piece of evidence for The Misfit’s guilt is how easily he seemed to send the family to their deaths. However, his comment when the grandmother recognized the was “it would have been better…if you hadn’t [recognized] me” and he told her he “would hate to have to [kill her].” O’Connor describes his eyes as being “red-trimmed and pale and defenseless looking” signifying that maybe he was not a cold blooded killer, but would just do anything not to go back to the penitentiary.

The Misfit was not a good person, that much is certain, but the question is was he driven to be the way he was because of his own experiences or was he just a cold-blooded murderer who thought he was an “undertaker” killing people to balance out the ones Jesus raised from the dead. However, with no direct evidence of the original crime the reader is left to guess endless possibilities and scenarios including things as absurd as having The Misfit kill his father who was dying from the flu in the hopes he would be raised from the dead. Although The Misfit did not look like a killer (described as having a scholarly appearance) and obviously did not enjoy killing the family, he was a murderer regardless of whether he became one from ones committed to him or his own inability to grasp the finer points of being human.

The original quote by itself seems to say The Misfit is innocent, but in the context of the story it could mean anything. As the story unfolds it is left up to the reader to decide whether he became a killer because of his own unjust experiences or his nature. Then to decide if it even matters.