SOURCE: Bandy, Stephen C. “‘One Of My Babies’: The Misfit and the Grandmother.” Studies in Short Fiction 33, no. 1 (winter 1996): 107-18.

In the following essay, Bandy disputes O'Connor's interpretation of her short story “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” as one not of grace and salvation, but rather deeply pessimistic and contrary to Christian doctrines.

Criticism of Flannery O'Connor's fiction, under the spell of the writer's occasional comments, has been unusually susceptible to interpretations based on Christian dogma. None of O'Connor's stories has been more energetically theologized than her most popular, “A Good Man Is Hard To Find.” O'Connor flatly declared the story to be a parable of grace and redemption, and for the true believer there can be no further discussion. As James Mellard remarks, “O'Connor simply tells her readers—either through narrative interventions or be extra-textual exhortations—how they are to interpret her work” (625). And should...