Isolation and the Involvement of Evil

The two short stories “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” by Flannery O’Connor and “Young Goodman Brown” by Nathaniel Hawthorne both have characters who allow their lives to be altered by the threat and lure of evil. While the Misfit from Flannery O’Connor’s short story seems to embrace the concept of and acts associated with evil, Brown from “Young Goodman Brown” seems to reject both evil and those associated with it. Although the Misfit and Brown have very different attitudes and take very different approaches to evil, both men eventually go astray and end up isolated from the society to which they once belonged.

From the very beginning of Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man Is Hard to Find,” the sheer evil conveyed by the Misfit becomes apparent. In the opening paragraph of the short story, the grandmother openly voices her desire to travel to East Tennessee instead of Florida for fear of running into the Misfit, an apparently horrendous criminal who has recently escaped from prison. According to what the grandmother has read in the newspaper, the Misfit is rumored to be heading to Florida and she “wouldn’t take [her] children in any direction with a criminal like that aloose in it” (1307). Even though the specific deeds committed by the Misfit are never explicitly stated, the implications of the severity of his crimes are seen through the grandmother’s severe reactions to reading them. Because the Misfit is introduced as a character already effected by evil, the reader is unable to determine exactly where he went astray in his life. One thing that is clear about the Misfit, however, is the fact that he lives up to his name as he is ostracized from society for his dishonorable deeds.

Following his brief introduction via the grandmother’s assertions, the Misfit is only casually mentioned until his final encounter with the collective protagonists of the story. This leads the reader to almost forget about the Misfit as a factor in the narrative. When the family wrecks their car as a result of the grandmother’s impaired judgment, the Misfit and his comrades witness the wreck and stop, seemingly to assist them. The Misfit initially comes across as cool and collected, but the family’s situation takes an ominous turn when the grandmother recognizes the Misfit as the escaped criminal she read about in the newspaper. In response to the accusation of indeed being the Misfit, he kindly replies “Yes’m” (1312). During the ensuing conversation, the Misfit continues utilizing social niceties, leaving the reader to almost approve of the Misfit in spite of the fact that he has committed some unknown horrendous crime. As the Misfit begins to have his cronies kill the family, he continues a conversation with the grandmother that ultimately leads to a discussion of religion. The Misfit confesses, “I was a gospel singer for a while,” which leads the reader to believe that religion was once indeed a factor in his life. His use of past tense, however, along with his failure to pray with the grandmother and his attitude of contempt towards Jesus leads the reader to believe that he no longer utilizes religious principles. The grandmother makes final attempts to reason with the Misfit and offer him one last chance at salvation. He rejects this offer, killing the grandmother and confirming the reader’s assumptions that the Misfit embraces evil. Despite a friendly offer of religious support and salvation, the Misfit once again embraces the evil that he has come to know so well.

Unlike the Misfit from “A Good Man Is Hard to Find,” Brown from Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown” seems to reject evil and those connected to it. Brown is a Puritan living in Salem, Massachusetts, a notoriously stringent society in terms of religious principles and practices. From the very beginning of the narrative, Brown’s rejection of evil and his embrace of these stern,