Goodness
Goodness is being kind to someone, and being there to help when the person is in dire need, and there is no expecting of a positive return.
This can be rated to the story of “The Villager and the Serpent” talks of kindness. Aesop speaks of a peasant who is helpful, but not too wise. As he travelled on one winter day around the land, he saw a snake stretched out in the snow cold and frozen, paralyzed from the cold with less time to live (De La Fontaine 3). The villager took him home with no consideration of the outcome of such a deed. The villager laid the serpent out before the blaze, warmed him up and reviving him.
The freezing serpent began to feel the warmth, thereby revitalizing his soul in addition to his wicked nature. Thesis: This paper discusses the goodness between Misfits and grandmother in reflection to “The Villager and the Serpent” definition of goodness. This paper stresses on the point that, no good can be returned with good. Charity is a virtue, but one should be careful towards whom they show charity to. There is no need flaunting it to ingrates who seal their own fate.
This scenario can be illustrated by two characters in the short story “A Good Man is Hard to Find” the unidentified grandmother and the Misfits. The villager in the story of “The villager and the serpent” portrays a character that contrasts with the characters that are displayed in the short story of a “Good Man is Hard to Find”. There is no goodness in the lives of the grandmother and the Misfit. The grandmother is portrayed as hypocritical, and someone who thinks that she is superior to others while the Misfit is a slayer. Despite the immoral behaviors portrayed by grandmother and the Misfits, there is no goodness in them where the grandmother’s goodness is portrayed; or rather the need to be good comes about when she is about to lose her life and unfortunately she does not get the chance to change. The “Villager and the Serpent” definition of goodness is doing what is right and just.
The unidentified grandmother in “A Good Man Is Hard to find” thinks herself as ethically exceptional to others, by quality of her being a “lady,” and she spontaneously and habitually passes verdict on others. The villager unlike the grandmother turned out not to be judgmental. He did what he thought was moral, and he did not put his life first. The grandmother maintains that, her morality is a guiding dynamism in her life, such as when she tells Bailey that, her integrity would not allow her to take the kids in the same way as the Misfit (O’Connor 1). Contrary to this notion, she actually led her grandchildren in the direction of Misfit.
She condemns the kids’ mother for not touring to a pace that would permit the children to become comprehensive; and she likens the mother’s face to a cabbage. She reproves John Wesley for not exhibiting more reverence for Georgia, his home land. She also takes any prospect, to critic the absence of goodness in individuals in the current world. Throughout all this, she pompously wears her prudently selected outfit and hat, convinced that being a lady is the utmost imperative moral of all, one that she only embraces. The grandmother believed that, what she was doing was good, and it was unfortunate for people not to view things from her perspective (O’Connor 6). The grandmother not once turns her grave eye on herself to scrutinize her own hypocrisy, selfishness, dishonesty.
For instance, the integrity the grandmother arouses at the commencement of the story is expediently silent when she slips into the vehicle, deceits the children about the undisclosed panel, and chooses not to disclose that she made a blunder about the locality of the household). When the Misfit methodically slaughters the family, the grandmother on no occasion once pleads him to pardon her children or grandchildren. She does, nevertheless, beg for her own life since she cannot envision the Misfit wanting to slay a lady. She seems convinced that he will identify and respect her moral code, as if it would mean anything to him in spite of his felonious ways (O’Connor 8).She attempts to pull him into her world, by reassuring him that he is a virtuous man, but although he approves her assessment of him, he does not see this as a motive to spare her (O’Connor 6). Simply when the grandmother is about to face death, in her concluding instants alone with the Misfit, does she comprehend where she has been mistaken in her lifespan.
Instead of being self-important, she grasps, she is damaged like everybody else. When she tells Misfit that he is “one of [her] own children,” she is conveying that she has found the capability to see others with kindness and consideration. This is an instant of realization, one that is instantly followed by her demise thereby ending her chance to show her new changed person (O’Connor 11). With his ferocious, wanton slaying, the Misfit appears an improbable basis to look to for moral or spiritual guidance, but he reveals a deep belief that the other personalities lack. Unlike the grandmother, who basically presumes that she is ethically grander to everybody else, Misfit really inquires the meaning of existence and his role in it (O’Connor 21).
He has cautiously bore in mind his actions in life and scrutinized his involvements to find teachings within them. Although this may fall under the definition of goodness in the story of the “Villager and the Serpent” that is, the self- awareness witnessed in the Misfits character, his beliefs annd actions are immoral. He has also rechristened himself due to one of these teachings, trusting that his price did not fit his crime. Since the Misfit has questioned himself and his existence so thoroughly, he discloses a self-consciousness that the grandmother does not have. He recognizes that he is not a great man, but he also understands that there are others eviler than him (O’Connor 14-19). He fashions basic philosophies, such as “no inclination but meanness” and “the delinquency does not matter”.
The Misfit’s viewpoints may be immoral, but they are constant. Unlike the grandmother, whose ethical code falls apart the instant it is confronted, the Misfit has a solid view of life and acts in accordance to what he considers is right. His opinions and actions are not ethical in the conservative sense, but they are sturdy and steady and thus giving him strength of belief that the grandmother lacks (O’Connor 14-19). Warped as it might be, he can depend on his ethical code to direct his actions. The grandmother cannot, and in the final instants of her life, she realizes his strength and her drawbacks.
O’Connor referred to the Misfit as a “prophet gone wrong,” and undeniably, if he had applied his ethical uprightness to a less immoral lifestyle, he could have been well-thought-out as a true preacher, pillar, or teacher (O’Connor 14-19). There is actually no goodness portrayed by Misfits and in fact he admits that he is an immoral person. Unlike the villager, he shows no mercy to the family in the predicament. He is so evil such that he even slays even those who beg for his pardon.The good and evil is well portrayed in the story of “A Good Man is Hard to Find”. Both the grandmother and the Misfits have their own convictions about life .
They believe that they are good, but what they do not know is that they are morally wrong. This shows how philosophies are fashioned from individuals we trust in our lives. The social inquisitiveness ensue in the general public from these philosophies be it from family or religion. We come into this sphere as good offsprings, but we are ill-advised and abused informally as we grow up till frustrations from these early cultured philosophies alters us into misfits as grown-ups. The “good man” is concealed under all the existence’s obstructions and the regaining to be virtuous men/women is challenging, too many distressing happenings, so most overlook what it is like to be a virtuous person. The characters within “A Good Man is Hard to find” are typically ill-informed and self-satisfying individuals, who stumble across “the grotesque” and are stunned into self-realization that they are no longer self-fulfilled.
These grotesque fundamentals are habitually the divine in camouflage forcing the characters into contemplation.
