Through the analysis of Flannery O’Connor’s works “A Good Man is Hard to Find” and “Everything that Rises Must Converge,” the distinct similarity of class can be distinguished between the grandmother of the family and Julian’s mother. The two characters share the static notions of how each class is represented in regards to race and propriety through the racist southern traditions which they were raised. In “Good,” the grandmother of the family is viewed as an older woman who clings to racism and traditional southern standards which dictated how a person was to act due to the social class which they belong. The grandmother’s static belief that race and class are joined becomes apparent during the scene when the family passes the Negro child on the side of the road which states,
“‘Oh look at the cute little pickaninny!’ she said and pointed to a Negro child standing in the door of a shack. ‘Wouldn’t that make a picture, now?’ she asked and they all turned and looked at the little Negro out of the back window. He Waved. ‘He didn’t have any britches on,’ June Star said. ‘He Probably didn’t have any,’ the grandmother explained. ‘Little niggers in the country don’t have things like we do. If I could paint, I’d paint that picture,’ she said” (O’Connor, “Good” 3)
In this scene, the grandmother objectifies the Negro child as if he were a caged animal to watch and then she classifies him as a lower class because he is a Negro and therefore must unable to afford pants. The objectification of the boy is a direct effect of the notion that because he is a Negro, he must be in a lower class whereas because the family is white, they are able to afford many things that Negroes are unable to have. The grandmother addresses her perceived class in the passage when she stated that she would paint a picture of the Negro boy, further removing the humanity of the boy, but then admits