The Undeserving Recipients of Grace in the Story: A Good Man is Hard to Find - Essay Example

Literature analysis The undeserving recipients of grace in the story, A good man is hard to find The story, A good man is hard to find is grossly depictive of religious intrigues with the grandmother and the Misfit represented as unlikely receivers of grace. The story initially casts the two characters as having a background of sins, lives full of religious defects and weak. Considering the subscriptions of Christianity, God’s unwavering grace freely bestows salvation to all human beings. In essence, salvation is given as a favor to humanity. Therefore, logical reasoning points to the fact that since salvation is freely given by God as a favor, even the most undeserving people in the face of humans receive its fullness. The grace as depicted in the story, A good man is hard to find advances the logic that God is so merciful and able to grant even the considerably undeserving people the access of heaven. The merciful God allows everyone the entry to heaven by bestowing upon them his indiscriminate grace. In the story, fair reasoning by human standards presents the grandmother as an unlikely recipient of God’s grace and by extension an unexpected candidate to heaven. In the preceding chapters of the story, the grandmother lies to her grandchildren, misdirects her son, and frequently harps about the deficiencies of the present and the superiority of the past. She lacks personal sensitivity and appears oblivious of her surroundings. Her sense of egoism sets her to believe that she is the rightful person to judge the conduct of the other people around her (OConnor 46). Furthermore, she feels that she is the undisputed person who should instruct others on how to carry out their lives. In essence, she sets herself at a position of superiority on religious matters to the extent that she feels like she has no inequities of her own. A retrospection of the grandmother’s disposition, as portrayed in the story, depicts her as bearing some inherent moral flaws. For instance, when she hears a gunshot in the neighborhood as they drive to Tennessee, she instructs the Misfit who she perceives as immoral to formulate a good prayer to safeguard the family on board from any danger. However, she fails to pose and recognize her inability to formulate a coherent prayer. She changes her stance about Jesus rising from the dead due to the fear of what may happen to them amidst the gunshots casts aspersions on the grandmother’s religious grounding. It is reasonable that if she was a religious ardent, she ought to remain firm to emulate the biblical assertions that Jesus too died and resurrected and so even if they became victims of any danger, they too could resurrect just like Jesus. Funnily, the fear of danger unsettles her religious grounding. On the other hand, the Misfit is depicted in the story as an unrepentant murderer. In essence, both the grandmother and the Misfit to some extent have religious misgivings hence undeserving recipients of grace. In the story, Grace finds a neutral ground that unites the grandmother and the Misfit. Grace asserts that the two, despite their inequities, have the chance of receiving the freely accorded gift of God’s grace. The Misfits pursuit of the workings of Jesus provokes the grandmother to realize their shared humanity. Initially, she regarded the Misfit as deficient but eventually concedes to the fact that the misfit is her child. Ideally, the Misfit is not her child but by receiving God’s grace through the conversation, her eyes open to see their shared humanity. The assertion by the grandmother that the Misfit is her child provides the most lucid depiction of the grandmother as one of the characters in the story. To an ordinary eye, the concession by the grandmother that the Misfit is her child appears an illusion but a closer retrospection of the statement reveals the effects of God’s grace. The enduring grace enables the grandmother to express compassion to the Misfit. In essence, the loving and kind God apparently grants the grandmother a sense of grace just before she dies off from the story cast. On the other hand, the Misfit too is open to grace at this moment, the revelation of the shared humanity to the grandmother results in the Misfits reception of grace (OConnor 67). In the genesis of the story, the Misfit claims that life provides humanity with nothing other than meanness, after receiving the grace he changes his stance. He now subscribes to the stand that his murderous life grants him no joy hence the desire to change his ways. The two characters overly epitomize a reception of grace by reasonably undeserving individuals. Analyzing the theme, the value of choices, the road not taken (by Robert Frost) In the contemporary life, humans are imposed to make pertinent decisions that have absolute significance in their lives. The challenge in decision-making comes when an individual has to make a decision in which the consequences are a mirage. In this case, the decision maker would fumble and unsoundly settle on of the decisions anticipating that it yields an optimum outcome. This situation can be likened to the confusion that the persona in the poem, the road not taken finds himself in. The persona in the poem is torn in between two ways. The two roads diverge to different directions, but he has to travel just one of the roads at a time. This presents a dramatic dilemma since the persona has to decide which of the two roads to take even though he is overly ignorant of what taking either of the roads portends to him. In a state of confusion like in the persona’s case, one decides to formulate flimsy reasons to justify taking either of the decisions. The reasons are merely a cover up for ignorance that underlies such decisions. For instance, in the case of the persona, he justifies his taking one of the roads by mentioning that he could see where one of the roads bent and that it was just and fair. The decision by the persona in the second stanza of the poem is assertive of the need for morality and ethical subscriptions in guiding decisions even in situations of uncertainty. The second line of the second stanza can be analyzed to mean that despite the burdens that making a decision based on morality brings, the outcome of such a decision is worthwhile. The persona portrays that the road of justice and fairness bears some sense of homogeneity. The second line on the third stanza stylistically asserts that only the people of right conscience trod the good path. Black is often used to depict evil and so its use in the second stanza of the third line connotes that immoral people cannot choose the right path. In taking a particular path or decision, one obviously forfeits the alternative decision. In fact, the persona reiterates the implications of taking one decision over the other in his the poem by stating on that he had literally taken one route and kept the other for another day. He concedes to his inability to travel both paths at the same time. However, in the fourth and fifth stanzas of the poem, the persona lays his doubts on the possibility that he will travel the forfeited route. Taking the first line of the second stanza into consideration, it is evident that the persona makes the decision to travel one of the diverging paths at one time based on its justice and fairness. This decision points to the moral standing of the persona. From this assertion, it is true that he would find it difficult to travel the other forsaken path. Avoiding the other path implies the persona’s conviction to avoid that, which is unfair and unjust. The fourth line of the third stanza depicts the persona’s state of mind in which he subscribes to his knowledge of the fat that decisions may interlink in one way or the other, eventually, the persona remains cognizant of the face that justice and fairness cannot meet. This stance guides his strong affirmation that the voice behind the poem is resolute in his decision. In conclusion, the story A good man is hard to find addresses the theme of undeserving recipients of grace. In the story, the Misfit and the grandmother who are perceivable the underserving recipients of grace embrace the dictates of Christianity. The grandmother embraces the Misfit as her child even though he is not her child in reality but because of their shared humanity and the disparity in age, she refers to him as her child. Reception of the grace by the two characters enables them to choose the right paths just before the story ends. The grandmother dies with the grace of God, as the Misfit too understands the need to depart from his murderous ways.in the poem, the road not taken; the persona subscribes too just and fair ways of life. He literally forfeits following ways that do not reflect fairness and justice. Works Cited OConnor, Flannery, and Frederick Asals. A Good Man Is Hard to Find. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1993. Print. Read More