SOURCE: "A Good Grandmother Is Hard to Find: Story as Exemplum," in The Antigonish Review, Nos. 81-2, Spring-Summer, 1990, pp. 143-55.

In the following essay, Currie examines "A Good Man Is Hard to Find" as a religious exemplum.

Near the end of "A Good Man Is Hard to Find," The Misfit's henchmen Hiram and Bobby Lee shoot the grandmother's son, Bailey, the two grandchildren, and the children's mother. After she exhausts her repertoire of verbal manoeuvers, in a desperate effort to save herself, the grandmother reaches out and touches The Misfit on the shoulder. He responds with three pistol shots to the chest, aborting a promising encounter between two people who have much in common. Then:

Hiram and Bobby Lee returned from the woods and stood over the ditch, looking down at the grandmother who half sat and half lay in a puddle of blood with her legs crossed...