From ME to the US - Assignment Example

The comics, hat, and glasses help readers understand the process of how the grandmother and the Misfit received grace, through understanding humanity’s disconnection and their vanities, until they realized that God’s love that can be proven through people’s spiritual bonds with each other and with God. Comics represent fictional stories that people make up to distract themselves from the reality of their lives. It stands for the distraction of the connection among the human race. The grandmother keeps on talking to her family, only to get a cold shoulder.

Even her grandchildren, who should traditionally show her respect by listening to her, would only focus on their comics. O’Connor writes: “The children were reading comic magazines and their mother and gone back to sleep.” Comics are colorful readings about diverse stories, mostly fictional, about heroes and their nemeses. They may be entertaining, but in this story, they serve to keep people glued on the comics, instead of building and strengthening relationships with each other through communication.

Comics symbolize the process of people being more concerned of grand illusions, instead of pragmatic and more meaningful human processes. In addition, comics also represent stories about heroes. In this case, God is the ultimate hero in people’s lives. He is the Savior. . The hat symbolizes that grace comes from sailing away one’s sense of self-importance and realizing one’s connection with others. The hat is a “navy blue straw sailor hat with a bunch of white violets on the brim” (O'Connor).

The straw represents something fragile. Mortality is fragile, because anytime, death comes, which unexpectedly happens to the story. The “sailor” part of the hat stands for a journey. A Good Man Is Hard To Find is a journey from self-importance to selflessness. The woman is vain with her physical appearance, but has neglected her inner self. She wants to die with the comfort that her clothing would immediately reveal that she is a “lady.” As the story progresses, however, she sheds her material concerns.

The accident is actually caused by her reminiscing of her wealthy, but distant past. She talks about the plantation that their family once owned and her affluent suitor. The white violets in the brim indicates spiritual awakening at the end of the story and at the end of people’s lives. The grandmother receives this grace only at her death. Grace is her “white violet” at the brim of her life. At this point, she finally understands that she is not important. Her family and their existence are more important, but they are gone now.

The Misfit’s acts of violence help her realize her connection with others. Keil supports this and says: “The grandmother, likewise, is brought salvation by a ‘wretched’ creature-The Misfit” (46). The grandmother opens her life to her own wretched existence. She is too focused on the “me,” that she forgets the “us.” She reconnects with God, but it