Is A Good Man That Hard To Find?

I feel that O'Connor's story fits well with her statement about the South being "Christ-haunted." In fact, I feel that the Misfit, whom at first appeared to me to be a ruthless, sadistic murderer, actually ended up being even more of a 'good person' than any of the members of Bailey's family. I will analyze certain statements made in the story to make my point feasible.
“The trees were full of silver-white sunlight and the meanest of them sparkled.” First off, it is pretty obvious to me that the "silver-white sunlight" is supposed to be imagery the reader associates with Heaven. Beyond that, I feel there are two possible meanings to it as a whole, depending on how you interpret the meaning of the word "meanest": either they are being portrayed as cruel, or they are being portrayed as average. In the first case, the trees could almost be approximated with the Misfit in the role of Jesus. In the second case, the trees could be representative of Bailey's family. “They passed a large cotton field with five or six graves fenced in the middle of it, like a small island.” It just so happens that the Bailey family has six members: Bailey, his wife, his mother, and his three children. I feel this is an allusion to the fact that they're going to die later on. The bit about the island may also be significant. In the end, they seemed to be stranded, trapped, and surrounded on all sides by the Misfit and his men, just like an island is surrounded by water. “The grandmother said she would have done well to marry Mr. Teagarden because he was a gentleman and ... a very wealthy man.” This little bit is important to note, because it points out one of the grandmother's most crucial flaws: she values money and material comforts over love and relationships. This is also evident in the way that she later proclaims she will give all of her money to Jesus in exchange for salvation, this occurs just before the Misfit shoots her. "No I certainly wouldn't," June Star said. "I wouldn't live in a broken-down place like this for a minion bucks!" Once again, the Bailey family's obsession with material wealth becomes apparent, and again, it is a female character who displays the trait. “The grandmother recalled the times when there were no paved roads and thirty miles was a day's journey. The dirt road was hilly and there were sudden washes in it and sharp curves on dangerous embankments. All at once they would be on a hill, looking down over the blue tops of trees for miles around, and then the next minute, they would be in a red depression with the dust-coated trees looking down on them.” This is perhaps my favorite quote of all. I'm pretty sure that this passage is alluding to the journey of life towards death. The grandmother recalls the days when this 'road of life' was not paved (straight and narrow being associated with paved roads, of course), and was a much longer journey. As opposed to the way it is at the time of the story's events. I think she means that when she was young in the olden days, life was much more difficult and much less predictable. The longer segment about the road the family is actually traveling on also mimics the journey of life (perhaps as it should be, or as O'Connor thinks it should be.) It has many "sharp curves on dangerous embankments," and it leads the family up onto hilltops, where they can see blue (the sky, Heaven, etc.), then back down again into a "red depression" (Hell), where they can see the "dust-covered trees" (the past, the old ways) looking down on them. “It was a big black battered hearse-like automobile... It came to a stop just over them and for some minutes, the driver looked down with a steady expressionless gaze to where they were sitting, and didn't speak.” This passage is riddled with descriptions meant to portray the Misfit and his band as the 'bringers of death,' or maybe even Death itself, personified. The car they arrive in is called "hearse-like.” Hearse meaning an automobile used in a funeral for carrying corpses, yet another death allusion. The fact that the driver (later revealed as the Misfit) is "expressionless" and looking down upon them also puts him back into the roles of both death, which is often portrayed as a black-hooded figure with no face; expressionless, and perhaps even God Himself looking down upon them, the damned, in judgment. “His voice seemed about to crack and the grandmother's head cleared for an instant. She saw the man's face twisted close to her own as if he were going to cry and she murmured, "Why you're one of my babies. You're one of my own children!" She reached out and touched him on the shoulder. The Misfit sprang back as if a snake had bitten him and shot her three times through the chest. Then he put his gun down on the ground and took off his glasses and began to clean them.” It seems that his parallels that story where Jesus (the Misfit) was tempted by the Devil (the grandmother, notice the snake reference), and managed to resist, Shooting her three times. Probably meant as a reference to the Holy Trinity, or some other obscure story I can't recall right now.
Grace, an important theme to O'Connor, is given to both The Grandmother and The Misfit, neither of whom particularly deserves it. As she realizes what is happening, The Grandmother begins to beg The Misfit to pray so that Jesus will help him. Right before The Misfit kills her, The Grandmother calls him one of her own children, recognizing him as a fellow human capable of being saved by God's Grace. Even though he murders her, the Misfit is implied to have achieved some level of Grace as well when he ends the story by saying, "It's no real pleasure in life." Earlier in the story, he claimed the only pleasure in life was meanness. The glorification of the past is prevalent in this story through the character of The Grandmother, who expresses nostalgia for the way things used to be in the South. Her mistake about the "old plantation that she had visited in this neighborhood once when she was a young lady" leads to the demise of the whole family when they get in a car accident while driving down the dirt driveway. Before she realizes that the plantation is actually not in Georgia but in Tennessee, she remembers "the times when there were no paved roads and thirty miles was a day's journey," imagining the beautiful scene she believes they will soon find.

Finally, the conclusion of the story and it wraps up my theory pretty well: The Misfit is given the role of Jesus, or (perhaps more appropriately) God. He passes judgment on people who are well on their way to Hell, thanks to their selfish, materialistic ways, and in the end, even though he murders them all, he is very solemn about it, and at one point he even mentioned that he'd prefer not to kill anyone if he didn't have to. I think it makes sense, considering that his last line leaves me with the impression that he took "no real pleasure" in what he did.