Unsuspected Destination: “A Good Man is Hard to Find”

1. Choose two of the following characters. For each character include three
quotations from the story to show O’Connor’s characterization of the two
characters you have chosen. Explain the character’s nature or temperament
revealed by the quotations provided.

 June Star
 John Wesley
 Misfit
 Grandmother
 Mother

2. Give an example of dramatic, situational, and verbal irony from the story. Be
sure to label your examples.

3. Choose two of the following. Explain how each brings about meaning in this
story.

 Red Sammy’s BBQ Place

 The Misfit drives a hearse.
 Toomsboro
 Sammy’s wife is described as “burnt brown.”
 Grandmother takes notice of the graves in the field as they travel.
 “In case of an accident, anyone seeing her dead on the highway would
know at once that she was a lady.”

4. Explain how the grandmother has a misconception of herself.

5. What might a theme of this story be?

6. Driving down the wrong dirt road towards the grandmother’s “plantation” can be
seen as symbolic, even as almost allegorical. Explain. What is it the road
represents with regard to the theme of the story?

7. How is the name of the story ironic?

8. Bearing in mind this is a story of Southern Christian religiosity, contrast the way
the grandmother and the Misfit see themselves with regard to spirituality and
following Jesus. How is this ironic?
9. What is the significance of the Misfit’s observation when he says, “She would
have been a good woman…if it had been someone there to shoot her every
minute of her life”?

10. In the end, as a person of faith, the grandmother realizes her responsibility for
every human, including the Misfit. She reaches out to him in a moment of clarity,
stating he is one of her children. It is at this moment the Misfit kills her. Why is it
he kills her when she does the right thing, and what statement about faith does
this make?