Use of Imagery in "A Good Man is Hard to Find"
Use of Imagery in "A Good Man is Hard to Find"
The imagery in Flannery O’Connor’s A Good Man is Hard to Find creates an atmosphere that makes the reader feel knee deep in the story. From the first page to the last the writer creates realistic images and visions for the individual reading, making them feel as if they were standing off and watching over the characters in the story. In this short story there is a good amount of description of the surroundings but an even greater amount of detail for the imagery included in the story. This could be for many reasons, for most of the examples shown he uses it to the effect that it gives a physical sense of being in the story. Imagery occurs in all stories, just some have a little bit more than others to make the story have a sense of wholeness.
The story starts off in a living room, or common area where members of the family are sitting on the sofa, excluding the children, who are reading parts of the newspaper on the floor. The description here is not very intense, but it eases the reader into the story and prepares for what is to come. Here you get a mild physical description of some of the characters, which aids in forming one of the first images in the story. “ Bailey didn’t look up from his reading so she wheeled around then and faced the children’s mother, a young woman in slacks whose face was as broad and innocent as a cabbage and was tied around with a green handkerchief that had two points on the top like a rabbit’s ears.” (381, 382) It simply says that the mother is seated on the couch feeding the baby, the father seated as well, and the grandmother is seated in her wheelchair. The description of the mother shows her as kind of sloppily dressed. The eight-year-old boy is described as being stocky and is wearing glasses. The young girl is blond headed and at times has her grandmother curl it for her.
The next scene, which eventually becomes a very pivotal point in the story, takes place in the car. The grandmother is the first one in the car, along with the cat. “She had her...