The Cause of Doubt: The Agnosticism of The Misfit - Book Report/Review Example

The Cause of Doubt: The Agnosticism of The Misfit The story “A Good Man is Hard to Find” by Flannery O’Connor reaches its climax as the family it hasbeen following meets their brutal end when they accidentally stumble upon an escaped convict who refers to himself as The Misfit. As the grandmother in the story begs for her life, The Misfit briefly explains his views toward life. We see that The Misfit is an agnostic, a person who believes that it is not possible to know of God’s existence, because he feels that life is unfair and there is no real way of knowing what happens after a person dies. The views expressed by The Misfit are not simple, though, and there are many factors in his life that have lead him to become the person that he is. To begin examining The Misfits views, we should start with the remote causes of the Misfits agnosticism. Growing up in the South, he would have grown up with a strong religious background. He even states that his parents were good people: “God never made a finer woman than my mother and my daddy’s heart was pure gold” (456). While it may be possible that The Misfit is being sarcastic or overly-patronizing, his brutal honesty throughout would seem to contradict this. At one point he states that he “was a gospel singer for a while” (457), furthering to depict The Misfit as a man with a strong religious background. Without a religious background in which The Misfit would have learned the religious views of Christianity, he wouldn’t have seen any contradictions inherent and would have no reason to be agnostic. As far as remote causes expressed, the first time that The Misfit makes a statement showing his less than believing nature can also be viewed as a remote cause. When the grandmother asks why he doesn’t pray, the Misfit replies “I don’t need no hep…I’m doing all right by myself” (458). If The Misfit has no need for God, then there isn’t any need for him to try to make himself believe in something that he sees as contradictory, and this serves as an additional reason as to why The Misfit is agnostic. To move closer to the causes and effects of The Misfits agnosticism, we will need to discuss the contributory causes. These can be summed up by saying that The Misfit feels as though he has been wronged and life in general doesn’t seem to be fair or have a sense of justice. To illustrate this, The Misfit states that he “never was a bad boy that I remember of…but somewhere along the line I done something wrong and got sent to the penitentiary. I was buried alive” (457). This shows that The Misfit felt that he never really thought of himself as a bad person growing up, considering his upstanding parents and such, but life is unfair and he was punished. The Misfit feels that life is so unfair that it wouldn’t have really mattered if he had done anything or not: “I found out the crime don’t matter. You can do one thing or you can do another, kill a man or take a tire off his car, because sooner or later you’re going to forget what it was you done and just be punished for it” (458). If life were fair like his good parents probably would have brought him up to believe, then The Misfit would have not been treated by life the way he was. As The Misfit states himself, “I call myself The Misfit…because I can’t make all I done wrong fit what all I gone through in punishment” (458). Without a sense of balance in his life, The Misfit would feel less inclined to believe that God exists and is a benevolent ruler who would make sure that people are treated fairly. All of these reasons contribute to The Misfit’s agnosticism, though they would not appear to be the main reason behind his views. To examine the immediate cause of The Misfit’s agnosticism, we need to examine his speech that begins with him stating that “Jesus thrown everything off balance” (458). Here we finally come to the main contradiction inherent in Christianity that causes The Misfit to have doubts about God. The Misfit has been told that he’s done things that he doesn’t remember, such as killing his father, so he feels that he can’t trust anything that he hasn’t experienced directly. As he was not present for Jesus’ death and resurrection, which he sincerely states that he wishes he had been, he can’t bring himself to believe that these events he was taught as a child actually happened. The Misfit then states the outcome of Jesus throwing everything off balance: “If he did what He said, then it’s nothing for you to do but throwaway everything and follow him, and if He didn’t, then there’s nothing for you to do but enjoy the few minutes you got left the best you can by killing somebody or burning down his house or doing some other meanness to him. No pleasure but meanness” (459). The Misfit, through all the unfairness he has dealt with in his life, has lost faith, and he is unable to believe in something he hasn’t seen. Because he doesn’t know, he sees the two possible outcomes as not really mattering, and he has chosen his path accordingly. As he states, he is the way that he is because of his doubt: “if I had been there I would of known and I wouldn’t be like I am now” (459). This is the immediate cause of The Misfit’s agnosticism. It might be said by some that The Misfit is obviously a bad man, and there is no real reason to take him at his word. However, as we can see that The Misfit is brutally honest, even after the family has been slain, we are lead to believe that he is being honest in the views expressed to the grandmother. Also, there would really be nothing learned if he had just been lying to the grandmother. Though a murderer, he seems honest in his doubts. Works Cited O’Connor, Flannery, “A Good Man is Hard to Find.” Literature and Its Writers, eds . Charters, Ann, Charters, Samuel, Bedford/St. Martin’s, Boston, 2004. Read More