Friends of Words

Author: Swati

  • In the Penal Colony by Franz Kafka: Summary, Analysis, Review

    In the Penal Colony by Franz Kafka: Summary, Analysis, Review

    In the Penal Colony, also known as “In der Strafkolonie” in German, is a short story written by Franz Kafka. First published in October 1919, this story has seen massive popularity and has been adapted widely around the world with film, chamber operas and plays to its name.

    In the Penal Colony: Summary and Plot Analysis

    The story is set in an unnamed place and focuses on a traveller who has been invited by the new commandant of a penal colony to see and understand the working of a mysterious machine.

    A penal colony or exile colony is a settlement used to exile prisoners and separate them from the general population by placing them in a remote location.

    The unnamed traveller meets with an officer for this purpose. This officer is to explain the apparatus and justification behind using it. They meet in the middle of a desert and are in the company of two other men – a condemned man and a soldier.

    The traveller finds the officer to be deeply enthusiastic about this assignment and is highly engaged. He is very proud of his creation and engages in an animated conversation about its functions.

    This machine, as it turns out, is something used to dole out punishments to the convicted.

    It has three parts – the bed, the inscriber and the harrow.

    The condemned man is supposed to lie on the bed, the inscriber has the law broken by the condemned man, while the harrow contains needles that inscribe the law on the condemned body and splashes water on the body to clear away the blood.

    It is usually a long process drawn out till 12 hours, the first six of which is the period where the condemned is said to feel only pain.

    After six hours, there seems to be a shift from pain to thoughts about the message being inscribed by the needles on their body, a state of trance, so to speak.

    The condemned usually die by the 12th hour and their body is dropped into a pit beside the machine.

    While still horrified by the torturous apparatus, the traveler is even more surprised when he finds out that the criminal sentences that are carried out are without the accused having a defense.

    Anyone accused is considered guilty and hence punished.

    He is told that the condemned man in their company was found guilty of not saluting the captain every hour like he was supposed to.

    The captain reported that the man was found asleep at the gate. The officer instantly found him guilty and there he was, for his own inscription day.

    Not only does the officer instantly doles out the judgment but also justifies this process citing the time that is saved by not listening to the other side, which he believes leads to a lot of lying making the process much longer than it needed to be.

    The condemned man, tied up and watched over by the soldier, however, is completely unaware of his fate.

    He is curious about the apparatus and sneaks a peek at it and tries to listen intently to the conversation between traveler and the officer to understand the apparatus.

    The officer, having explained the machine to the traveler with the slight hint of pride, asks the soldier to strap the condemned man on to the apparatus and begins to lament at the lack of support for this punishment method to the extent that he was the only one who was an open supporter.

    He reminisces of its glory days under the old commandant, now deceased. He beams with pride and has a shine in his eyes when he recalls the crowd that used to throng the place on days of execution, turning the event to a popular spectacle.

    And all that changing completely under the new commandment, who is against this mode of punishment, makes the officer visibly disheartened.

    The officer thinks that the traveler, as an outsider, is the means that the new commandant is using to completely rid the penal colony of this mode of judgement. He implores the traveler to defend the machine, just by not voicing any objections to it.

    The traveler disagrees as he does not find his punishment system just.

    Seeing that the traveler is adamant about his view, the officer orders the release of the condemned man and fixes the machine with another message for the inscriber “Be just”.

    He removes his clothes and is helped by the condemned man and the soldier to be strapped on to the machine.

    The machine falters and instead of being inscribed he is being stabbed by the needles. The water does not wash the blood and the machine suddenly stops. The officer is completely mutilated, a needle having gone right through his forehead.

    Intrigued by the officer’s account of the old commandant, he visits the gravesite and finds the plaque saying he will return and his old followers will rise up.

    He prepares to leave the town and at the port sees the soldier and the condemned man who seem to be wanting to join him on the boat.

    The traveler gets on the boat and successfully prevents the other two from doing it.

    Want to read In the Penal Colony?

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    In the Penal Colony: Quotes, Theme and Review

    Kafka is in his full element with this story raising deeper questions about the role of justice in a well-functioning society, moral means of carrying out the judgements and the purpose or meaning of one’s life.

    The characters in the story, each have their desire at loggerheads with the others, preventing them all to find meaning in their lives.

    The officer wants the machine to be accepted by the new commandant by getting a favorable view from the traveller. The traveller was against it. The condemned man wanted to be free, the soldier and the officer were against it.

    None of them would be able to get what they wanted without affecting what the other did. Zero sum game.

    I couldn’t help but draw parallels to the real life applicability of this predicament.

    The utterly absurd means of judgment stands out to me as the most poignant theme in this story. Consider this quote by the officer for example:

    The basic principle that I use for my decisions is this: Guilt is always beyond a doubt. Other courts could not follow this principle, for they are made up of many heads and in addition have even higher courts above them.

    The fact that the officer is completely convinced of the correctness of his means is horrifying. We didn’t see him faltering even when his own judgement was carried out. He didn’t flinch once.

    This is crippling, come to think of it.

    People in the position of authority, with their misguided ideals can wreak havoc on societies as a whole.

    The famous Stanley Milgram experiment is a case in point. People, when working under authority, can go to great lengths administering atrocities.

    Another theme stands out: life as a slow torture.

    The machine is supposed to carry out the punishment in a long drawn out process. The condemned  death is slow and painful. The condemned know their fate, can not raise their voice against it, the society does nothing to support them.

    Traveler`s observation looking at the condemned man for the first time.

    The condemned man had an expression of such dog-like resignation that it looked as if one could set him free to roam around the slopes and would only have to whistle at the start of the execution from him to return.

    And his own surprise getting to know that the condemned man was unaware of his fate–

    He doesn’t  know his own sentence?

    A society like this clearly marking the beginnings of a dystopian society.

    Commenting on his Kafka stories, Anatole Broyard had once said:

    “They are an encyclopedia of our insecurities and our brave attempts to oppose them”

    In the Penal Colony definitely fits the bill.

  • The 30000 Bequest by Mark Twain: Summary and Review

    The 30000 Bequest by Mark Twain: Summary and Review

    The 30000 Bequest is a short story written by renowned American author Mark Twain. It was first published in a collection of short stories. This story revolves around the devastating effects of union of fantasy and finance.

    Picture this:

    You are walking down the street mindlessly and  you suddenly come across a beautiful young woman. Your immediate reaction is to tuck your bulging stomach in, and you smile your goofy smile – charming in your head and totally awkward in reality – imagining having that beauty as your doting girlfriend, having a mansion for a house, a Ferrari for a casual stroll car, when suddenly you see being yanked into a highly crowded subway train, failing to notice the door closing on your face.

    The beautiful woman is nowhere to be seen and somehow you have managed to sleepwalk in broad daylight for a straight 15 minutes right up till the subway train that takes you to work.

    You let out a sigh and well, get on with your day.

    Seems far fetched, eh?

    I bet you have seen at least a couple of variants of this seemingly inexplicable occurrence in some television show or some movie if you haven’t lived at least a dialed down version of this episode yourself at some point in your life.

    But what am I going on and on about this imagination when we are here to have a discussion about Mark Twain’s short story The 30000 Bequest?

    Two words:  Spoiler Alert.

    The 30000 Bequest: Summary and Plot Analysis

    The story is set in a small town called Lakeside and boasts of about 6000 residents. Everyone knows everyone and their dogs. People are religious and friendly.

    The protagonist Saladin Foster was the only high-salaried book keeper in the town in his mid-thirties, who lived in the town with his wife Electra and their two daughters – Clytie and Gwen.

    Electra is a devoted wife and has brought the family a significant sum of money through her calculated financial ventures. She is a happy and pleased woman.

    Saladin (Sally) and Electra (Aleck) are both practical and diligent in all their endeavors during the day, but in the night, in each other’s company, the romantic version of their lives comes alive.

    All in all, they live a happy life.

    One day, they receive news from Sally’s distant relative Tilbury Foster, from a neighboring state, who mentions that he would be leaving 30000 bequest for them in his will, provided that they make no inquiries about him and do not attend his funeral.

    The couple, failing to properly register the oddity of the request, immediately start multiplying the imaginary money in their heads through a variety of financial investments.

    Although pretty harmless and comparatively limited in the beginning, their imagination begins to spiral out of control pretty quickly.

    The constant wait for the ‘good news’ of their relative’s demise meddles with their natural healthy familial state.

    They find themselves losing patience at the drop of a hat, quarreling with each other and constantly distracted while performing their usual duties.

    In a world where both of them have managed to multiply their imaginary wealth running into billions and made powerful contacts in the country and abroad, they keep rejecting proposals for their daughters. They are resolute on marrying them into nobody less than royalty.

    The husband and wife, who had once been so loyal and dedicated to each other, start finding flaws in one another, imaginary vices that they seemed to have acquired with their enormous wealth.

    Then, one day, the editor and proprietor of the Sagamore pays them a visit to remind them of their overdue payment of subscription, which the Fosters had missed for the last four years.

    Giddy with excitement to receive a visitor that they thought could only bring them good news of the relative’s death, they are heartbroken when they are told that Tilbury Foster died five years ago!

    Crestfallen upon receiving this terrible news, Sally and Electra sit motionless for hours, not realizing the departure of their guest.

    The dashed hopes do an irreparable damage to their mental health and they die a couple of years later.

    On his deathbed, Sally reflects on the disasters of unnatural wealth acquisition:

    Vast wealth, acquired by sudden and unwholesome means, is a snare. It did us no good, transient were its feverish pleasures; yet for its sake, we threw away our sweet and simple and happy life – let others take warning by us.

    Want to read The 30000 Bequest by Mark Twain?

    The 30000 Bequest is a short story which is published in a novel alongwith other short stories written by Mark Twain. You can use the links given below to buy this short story collection on Amazon:

    Check Price on Amazon US
    Check Price on Amazon Canada
    Check Price on Amazon India

    The 30000 Bequest: Quotes and Review

    It’s so interesting to see the progression from contentment to cautious to frivolous and dangerous imagination and the havoc that it wreaked on their lives.

    Here’s the happy:

    “Happy in her husband, happy in her children and the husband and the children were happy in her.”

    The cautious:

    “Don’t lose your head so. We must not subscribe till we’ve got the money. Don’t you know that?”

    The frivolous:

    “Money had brought him (Tilbury Foster) misery, and he took revenge upon us, who had done him no harm. He had his desire: with base and cunning calculation he left us but thirty thousand, knowing we would try to increase it, and ruin our life and break our hearts.”

    The story has a grim ending but there is a little characteristic Mark Twain witty relief.

    Recall the brainstorming session that the couple had trying to come up with an excuse to throw a party to celebrate their imaginary wealth. As there were no birthday or any specific occasion to celebrate, the couple came up with an ingenious idea:

    But at last he hit it – just by sheer inspiration, as it seemed to him – and all their troubles were gone in a moment; they would celebrate the Discovery of America. A splendid idea!

    Let me take you back to a quick trip down the short term memory lane. Remember the guy sleep-walking his way up to his train at the Subway station I told you about at the beginning of this article?

    Does that idea seem more plausible to you now?

    What I got from the story is that – Crazy imagination is hilarious, when the subject is not you.

    Hope can be slippery sometimes.

    Tread with caution, friends of words!

  • Hell Is The Absence Of God: Summary, Analysis and Review

    Hell Is The Absence Of God: Summary, Analysis and Review

    Hell is the Absence of God is a short story (novellete) written by Ted Chiang. First published in 2001, this story primarily revolves around Neil Fisk, a recent widower, who lost his beloved wife in the aftermath of an Angel’s visitation.

    “Obedience, he might have managed, but sincere, heart-felt love (for God)? That was a ransom he couldn’t pay.”

    With this short story Hell is the absence of God, Ted Chiang takes us on an exploration, the one where angel visitations, hell and heaven are as real as the physical world around us.

    This story is one of the more celebrated stories of Ted Chiang. First published in 2001, this one has Hugo, Locus and Nebula awards to its name.

    Hell is the Absence of God: Summary and Plot Analysis

    The story primarily revolves around Neil Fisk, a recent widower, who lost his beloved wife in the aftermath of an Angel’s visitation.

    Sarah’s soul was seen to be ascending to heaven, leaving her non-devout husband in pure grief and scampering for means to find pure devotion to God. This, he feels, will help him reunite with his wife in heaven.

    He starts attending support group meetings with similar people who were affected by that visitation. These are people whose faith has strengthened even further than before, either from gratitude or from terror.

    He is not able to relate to either of those emotions and finds himself drawn to another group where people who are feeling quite the opposite, struggling to continue their devotion.

    He finds it increasingly impossible for him to be devout or committed to God now.

    The story then follows two other characters, Janice Reilly and Ethan Mead, both of whom eventually play an important role in Neil’s final fate.

    Janice Reilly is a woman who was born without legs after her mother had an angelic visitation. She is a positive individual and has made a name for herself as a motivational and spiritual speaker.

    One day, after an angelic visitation, she finds herself able-bodied. She is now disillusioned, unsure as to whether to take this act of God as a gift or punishment.

    This uncertainty spills over in her speaking engagements and the crowd begins thinning. She is yet to find a reason as to why she would get her legs back when she didn’t even wish for it.

    As an able-bodied woman, getting used to having legs, she starts getting attention from all kinds of men, which is when she gets to meet Ethan Mead.

    She thinks Ethan has a romantic interest until one day he clarifies his purpose.

    Ethan has been raised in a devout family, who thinks that God is directly or indirectly responsible for the good fortune bestowed upon them.

    His family has never had any visitation and is happy with the status quo.

    Ethan, however, has a strong feeling that God has a special purpose for him and longs for an encounter with the divine to provide him with direction. He doesn’t go to the holy sites where angelic visitations are frequent, thinking that that’s the doing of a desperate man, and patiently waits for it to come.

    The visitation does happen, and Janice gets her legs as a blessing, but nothing out of the ordinary happens for him, and having got no insights about his calling, he decides to pursue Janice to find it.

    Neil, in the meantime, is still struggling to cope with Sarah’s loss and finding devotion to God to reunite him with her in heaven.

    He gets to hear of different perspectives of people in the support group and through a woman called Valerie also comes to know of the humanist movement. The followers of the humanist movements were individuals that advocated people acting as per their own moral sense, nothing else.

    Neil felt drawn to that ideology but refrained from pursuing it for the fear of being driven further apart from Sarah if he did.

    Desperately looking for ways to reunite with Sarah, he chances upon stories of heaven’s light comes to know of people’s encounters with heaven’s light. Heaven’s light appears when angels enter or leave the mortal world.

    People witnessing heaven’s light ascend to heaven regardless of the sins in their lives, no matter how grave they are.

    This attracts people to many pilgrimage sites in the hope that they will witness the sight and ascend. Some even try to follow the angel around when it appears so that they can witness it.

    Upon discovering that Janice will be attending a shrine for a visitation to return her gift, he decides to go on the pilgrimage as well.

    In preparation, Neil uses up savings to buy a truck that could handle the harsh ride on the terrain on his hunt to witness heaven’s light. He familiarizes himself with the terrain and one day sees an angel flying over the holy site.

    He follows the angel through dangerous terrains, crashes his vehicle and is mortally wounded.

    He sees Janice and Ethan approaching  to rescue him and heaven’s light striking Janice. The light strikes him as well. Both of them turn blind.  Neil dies shortly after.

    Ethan witnesses the whole scene, sees Neil’s soul ascending to heaven initially but finally descending to hell.

    Armed with this insight that heaven’s light does not guarantee an admission to heaven, he finds his purpose – he becomes a minister and goes on to spread this message to the world.

    Neil (who is in hell now), however, finds true devotion to God he was desperately after.

    He accepts that he will never be reunited with Sarah but continues to stay devoted  because ‘Unconditional love asks nothing, not even that it be returned.’

    Hell is the Absence of God: Analysis and My Thoughts

    Ted Chiang, in an interview, had said that after watching the movie “The Prophecy”, he wanted to write a book about angels, but could not imagine a scenario where it would work.

    In this novellete, he examines, rather brilliantly, the role of faith in religion. He maintains that if God undeniably existed, then faith would no longer be applicable.

    Neil, who has now moved on to hell, still finds true devotion to God, which goes on to say that Chiang believes that it’s still possible to be devoted to God, even when you’re in hell.

    All in all, this short story presents a rather unique perspective on the role of faith in religion and how people deal with suffering or the loss of a loved one.

     

  • Eisenheim the Illusionist: Short Story Summary, Analysis, Review

    Eisenheim the Illusionist: Short Story Summary, Analysis, Review

    Eisenheim The Illusionist is a short story written by Steven Milhauser. It was first published in 1989. It tells the story of a magician who becomes so good in his craft that people start believing that he has sold his soul to the devil and can therefore perform real magic.

    Eisenheim the Illusionist: Summary & Plot Analysis

    Steven Milhauser’s short story ‘Eisenheim the Illusionist’ revolves around a conjurer Eduard Abramowitz, also known as Eisenheim, who is considered the magician da supreme. The story is presented as his short biography, despite the magical occurrences in the plot, which seem other-wordly.

    Very little is known of his origins outside the realm of illusion, except for a few details like, Bratislava, where his roots were, and his father being a widely respected cabinet maker, whose creations adorned the homes of gentry there.

    The eldest of four children, he was fascinated by woodcraft and by the age of seventeen, was a pretty good cabinetmaker, a skill that came in handy for his future work as a master magician. A chance encounter with a travelling magician is what seemed to have spurred his lifelong – passion for magic.

    He accepted his new passion wholeheartedly, albeit a bit slowly, till the age of 24, when he continued to be known for his cabinet making skills much more than those involving magic, .

    However, at the age of 28, he burst into the scene with full vigor, appearing in front of a theater in Vienna.

    His initial public performances were known for their subtle mastery of the illusions of the day, popular one being the Orange Tree.

    As his career progressed, his illusions became more and more nuanced, holding the spectators in awe and aching for more.

    His illusions had now become so realistic that people started thinking of him as a wizard instead of a showman -someone who sold his soul to the devil in return for unholy powers.

    Cashing in on the popularity, Einsenheim opened his own theater, Einsenheimhaus, which saw his creations become even more original than before. His ascent to magical fame was not, however, unchallenged.

    There were two prominent magicians who presented a formidable challenge to Eisenheim – Viennese Benedetti and Bavarian Passauer. Benedetti presented imitations of original Eisenheim illusions with clever variations.

    Benedetti, as part of his magic trick, stepped into a black cabinet, never to be seen again. Thereafter, there were rumors of Eisenheim spiriting him away to hell. Such was the impact of Eisenhiem’s personality!

    The other magician that posed a much more persistent challenge was Passauer. His masterfully done illusions took Vienna by storm.

    Passaeur didn’t attack Eisenheim, and some would say, refused to even acknowledge Eisenheim’s stature as his rival.

    However, both Passauer and Eisenheim continued to out-do each other in their subsequent acts, establishing a rhythm to their rivalry.

    In his final performance, Passauer exhibited frightening brilliance in his illusions, with the act culminating in him exposing himself as Eisenheim. This received a tumultuous response from the audience.

    Following this grand performance, Eisenheim retired from magic for a good one year, perhaps to cope with the strain of a sustained deception.

    He comes back to theater, but  this time his magic is centered around materializations, simple at first but becoming increasingly complex and breathtaking over time.

    Einseheim began materializing holographic images on the stage, people began drawing parallels between the ones manifested on stage to the real world and started believing them to be ghosts instead.

    Ghosts that had an inside track into the other world. His new act brought newer audiences into his fold – psychics as well as spiritualists. People dug around but couldn’t explain this act.

    These acts from Eisenheim had a profound impact on the audience and they flocked to the theaters with anticipation.

    It was around that time that rumors started about Eisenheim’s impending arrest. Finding the policeman Herr Uhl at the theater stressed the audience.

    Police, citing disturbance to the public order as an official reason, justified Eisenheim’s arrest orders. As per police reports, there had been hundred incidents.

    Eisenheim, however, was never caught.

    He used the same mastery in illusions to escape as he used to entice the audience. A deeper analysis of Uhl’s report revealed that it was the extraordinary nature of Eisenheim’s magic – something that blurs the line between reality and illusion.

    Eisenheim the Illusionist: Review

    I couldn’t help but compare the story with its cinematic counterpart – The Illusionist, starring Edward Norton and Jessica Biel.

    If you liked the short story and haven’t seen the movie, there is a good chance that you will be pleasantly surprised with it. Its filmmakers made significant alteration in the plot to add flavor to it.

    At the risk of going completely off-theme, I will leave you with this funny quote from Terry Pratchett – the famous English humorist “Scientists have calculated that the chances of something so patently absurd actually existing are millions to one. But magicians have calculated that million-to-one chances crop up nine times out of ten.”

    If the movie or the story failed to bring a smile to your face, this definitely will.

  • A Good Man Is Hard To Find: Summary, Review, Analysis

    A Good Man Is Hard To Find: Summary, Review, Analysis

    A Good Man Is Hard to Find is a short story written by Flannery O’Connor. It was first published in 1953 in a collection of short stories titled “A Good Man Is Hard to Find.”

    You might have heard this old proverb – don’t judge a book by its cover.

    In my recent reading experience, I have found that to be equally applicable to the title of the stories which I have been reading lately.

    First The Lottery by Shirley Jackson, then Cathedral by Raymond Carver and now this.

    I read the title of this story and the first thing that popped in my head was an image of an American version of one of Jane Austen’s leading ladies and her difficult journey to a good man, but hey! What did I know?

    A Good Man Is Hard To Find: Summary and Plot Analysis

    The story opens with a grandmother trying to convince her son to take a trip to Tennessee where she wanted to meet up with some of her connections.

    Her son Bailey and his family, on the other hand, wanted to head to Florida.

    The grandmother lives with her son Bailey, her innocent `cabbage faced` daughter-in-law, her grandson John Wesley, her granddaughter June Star and a toddler.

    Despite the grandmother trying to convince Bailey to go to Tennessee, citing all sorts of reasons including the presence of an escaped convict in Florida, the family does not budge and it is confirmed as the destination.

    On the day of the trip, the grandmother hides her cat in a basket and puts her in the car. She wears a dress and a hat that says she is ‘a lady’ in case they meet with an accident.

    She sits with June and John on either side of her. The children engage in their banter and John calls Tennessee a ‘hillbilly dumping ground’ resulting in his grandmother chastising him.

    She narrates a rather funny story of her suitor named Edgar Atkins Teagarden.

    He used to bring a watermelon for her everyday, leaving it on her porch with his initials on them resulting in a black child eating it mistaking the initials E.A.T as an instruction.

    Enroute, the family stops at a restaurant called the Tower, owned by Red Sammy Butts.

    Red Sammy mentions people are becoming more and more untrustworthy these days, quoting one incident from the recent past where he let two decent looking men buy gas on credit.

    A conversation about Misfit – the escaped convict – starts somehow and the woman worries that he will rob them.

    Sammy laments that good men are hard to find these days and the world is worse off for it.

    The family gets on the road again and the grandmother takes her intermittent naps, waking up from one to realize that she had visited the plantation in the past and wanted to see it again.

    Knowing fully well that her son will not entertain the idea of stopping to look at that place, she crafts a story about the house with a plantation that has secret panels.

    This spurs the children’s imagination and they start yelling and screaming to visit it.

    Bailey, who is completely against the idea at first, finally agrees to take the family there to handle the ruckus children have created.

    The grandmother points him to a dirt road and the family drives deep into the woods, the grandmother suddenly realizes the house that she was mentioning was actually in Tennessee.

    Horrified, her feet jerked, upsetting the cat. The cat jumps on a startled Bailey’s shoulder, and he loses control of the car.

    Although the car is wrecked, the family escapes unhurt with the exception of Bailey’s wife who had a broken shoulder.

    The grandmother decides not to mention anything about her mistake to her son, who is fuming at this point.

    They wait for someone to come by to seek help. They see a car approaching from far away and grandmother waves her arms dramatically to attract their attention.

    The car stops and three armed men come out of it.

    The grandmother has a strange feeling that she recognizes one of those men. One of them asks the mother to settle her children down as they make him nervous.

    The grandmother, suddenly realising that one of the men is Misfit, screams out at the Misfit with recognition, upsetting her son, who curses violently at her.

    She starts crying and the man starts consoling her. She asks if he would shoot a lady, and the man mentions that it wouldn’t be his preference.

    The grandmother keeps telling him that he is a good man and he agrees to that, calling his mother the finest woman and his dad to have had a heart of pure gold.

    Hiram and Bobby Lee take Bailey and John into the woods.

    The conversation continues between the grandmother and Misfit. Misfit agrees that he is not a good man but not the worst either.

    He apologizes to the ladies for not wearing a shirt because they had to bury their clothes after they escaped. He mentions that they borrowed the clothes they’re wearing from some people they met on their way.

    The grandmother asks Misfit if he prays to which he says No.

    Two gunshots fill the air.

    He tells the grandmother that he was not a bad child but remembers having gone to the prison for the crime that he didn’t remember committing. He gets to know from a psychiatrist that he had killed his father. Misfit has no memory of this.

    The grandmother urges that he prays so Jesus helps him. Misfit denies doing that as he does not need any help and he is doing good by himself.

    Bobby Lee and Hiram come back from the woods, without Bailey and John and hand over a shirt to Misfit. Misfit asks the children’s mother to take the child and June Star with her and go with Bobby Lee and Hiram.

    Bobby Lee tries to hold June Star’s hand who ridicules him for looking like a pig.

    Realizing her soon-to-be fate, the grandmother starts chanting “Jesus, Jesus”.

    He thinks himself to be like Jesus except that he had not committed a crime. He calls himself Misfit because he thinks that the punishment that people get for their crimes do not fit their crimes.

    The grandmother hears gunshots again, three this time and cries out for Bailey. She implores him to not shoot a lady.

    Misfit continues her conversation about Jesus saying that Jesus confused everyone by raising from the dead. Because if he actually did that, then everyone should follow him.

    But if he didn’t actually do that then indulging in meanness in one life is a natural thing for people to do.

    The grandmother agrees with him. Misfit wishes he was there to see Jesus raising the dead, he would have known for sure then.

    Seeing Misfit’s voice breaking and face contorted as he was going to cry, in her moment of clarity, the grandmother calls the Misfit “one of my own babies,” and touches him on the shoulder.

    As if bitten by a snake, Misfit springs on his feet and shoots her in the chest three times.

    Bobby Lee and Hiram return, remarking on the grandmother being a talker.

    The misfit observes that the grandmother could have been a good woman “if someone was there to shoot her every moment of her life.”

    The Misfit says life has no true pleasure.

    Want to buy A Good Man Is Hard to Find?

    A Good Man Is Hard to Find is a short story which is published in a novel alongwith other short stories written by Flannery O’Connor. You can use the links given below to buy this short story collection on Amazon:

    Check Price on Amazon US
    Check Price on Amazon Canada
    Check Price on Amazon India

    A Good Man Is Hard To Find: Analysis and Review

    There is a quality to this story that’s haunting to the core. The author paints a picture of a regular family taking a trip to Tennessee, talking about things that any regular family talks about, including the news of a cruel murderer who’s on the run from the law.

    No one in the family, in fact, not even the reader of the story expects the murderers to actually meet the family in the end and then kill them in cold blood.

    There’s a bone-chilling aspect to this story – the further you go in the story, the scarier it becomes, mostly because of the fear of “what’s going to happen next”.

    A true classic! The accolades that A Good Man is Hard to Find has received is a testimony to that. This is certainly Flannery O’Connor’s best work.

    First published in 1953, this story has inspired a lot of scholarly work and on-screen adaptations.

    The story was adapted into a film called Black Hearts Bleed Red in 1992 and a modern chamber opera in 2003.