“A good man is hard to find” and “The five forty eight”

Compare and contrast

The first collection of O'Connor's fiction, A Good Man Is Hard to find, consists mostly of previously published short stories and a short novella, The Displaced Person. The title story may be O'Connor's most famous, deals with a Georgia family on its way to Florida for vacation. (Meanor P.13) As the story opens, the main character, the grandmother, tries to convince her son, Bailey, to go to east Tennessee because she has just read about an escaped convict, The Misfit, who is heading to Florida. The family, including the nondescript mother, a baby, the other children, John Wesley and June Star, and Pitty Sing, the grandmother's cat, journeys to Florida. They stop at Red Sammy's Famous Barbeque, where the proprietor discusses his views of the changing times, saying “A good man is hard to find” to the grandmother, who has similar views. (Donaldson P.21)

While comparing to, “The Five-Forty-Eight” seems to have little in common with the blackly humorous “O Youth and Beauty.” A disturbed woman, Miss Dent, follows Blake, whose secretary she had been for three weeks and whose lover she was for one night, some six months earlier. (Donaldson P.26) She trails him from his office building to his commuter train. Threatening to shoot him, she gets off at his stop and forces him to kneel and rub his face in the dirt for having seduced and abandoned her six months earlier. One of Cheever's least likable characters, Blake gets what he deserves. Having chosen Miss Dent as he has chosen his other women (including, it seems, his wife) “for their lack of self- esteem,” he not only had her fired the day after they made love but also took the afternoon off. Miss Dent fares considerably better, for in choosing not to kill Blake she discovers “some kindness, some saneness” in herself that she believes she can put to use. (Donaldson P.21) Blake too undergoes a change insofar as he experiences regret for the first time and comes to understand his own vulnerability, which he has heretofore managed to safeguard by means of his “protective” routines and scrupulous observance of Shady Hill's sumptuary laws. Whether these changes will be lasting remains unclear; he is last seen picking himself up, cleaning himself off, and walking home, alone. (Coale P.16)

The seemingly comic events of the day turn to disaster as the grandmother, upsetting the cat, causes the family to wreck, and The Misfit and two men arrive. The grandmother recognizes The Misfit, and as a result, brings about the death of the entire family. Before she dies, however, the grandmother, who has been portrayed as a self-centered, judgmental, self-righteous, and hypocritical Protestant, sees the humanity of The Misfit and calls him “one of my babies.” This section of the story represents what O'Connor calls “the action or moment of grace” in her fiction. Thematically, the story concerns religious hypocrisy, faith and doubt, and social and spiritual ...