The Virtues of Humility and Honesty - Essay Example

A Good Man is Hard to Find The protagonist in this case is the grandmother. She is very self-righteous. She believesthat everything she does is right. She sees no wrong that she has done her entire life. She lives her life by passing judgment on other people. She reprimands John Wesley for speaking ill of his home state. She is of the belief that she knows everything and has an immense understanding of morals. She is a hypocrite. In spite of the fact that she acts as if she does no wrong, she sneaks her cat into the vehicle for the journey knowing that it would be offensive to Bailey.

When she realizes that she has misled the rest into finding the house, which is in Tennessee and not in Georgia, she fails to say so (OConnor, 49). She would rather maintain her righteousness than illustrate that she is flawed. She is incredibly selfish. When the attackers in the bush kill the children, she does not make an effort to plead for them before or after either of the killings. She is more focused on her own life and preserving it. This is very unusual for a person of her age and maturity, as she ought to have more concern for her grandchildren.

This illustrates that she is a heartless being that has no regard even for those that are the closest to her. She is rigid. Her rigidness is illustrated by her inability to comprehend that her way of thinking may in essence be wrong in the modern day. She is also delusional. This is because she is of the belief that wearing a sachet will illustrate to people in the case of an accident that she was a woman. She experiences change when her life is almost over. She realizes that she has been acting flawless when she is in fact just like everyone else.

It suddenly dawns on her that she had been leading a hypocritical existence. She goes as far as calling the misfit “one of her children (OConnor, 63).” This is because she understands that he is no different from her. He may have strayed, but in life, everyone does. She begins to see that there is no point in judging him or anyone else, as she was accustomed to doing. The reason she gets to this point is that she is staring death in the face. This forces her to reflect on the way she has led her life and whether she has made any achievements.

Because of this, she understands that in spite of her demeanor as a woman, she would die in a very cold way. This change is important in the protagonist’s life. Notably, she is the eldest of all the victims and therefore she should have been the wiser. However, the belief that she was wiser instead of acknowledging that she is also human, led people to their demise. In spite of the belief that she was knowledgeable, she is the one that brought the tragedy. Had she just corrected her error about the house, the misfortune could have been evaded.

This is a story that illustrates that people should not go through life being self-centered and self-righteous. Instead, people should embody the virtues of humility and honesty. In this way, they will be fair to themselves, those closest to them and avoid self-inflicted Works Cited OConnor, F. Collected works : Wise blood ; A good man is hard to find ; The violent bear it away ; Everything that rises must converge ; Stories and occassional prose ; Letters. New York: Literary Classics of the United States, 1988.