Reactions to "A Good Man is Hard to Find"

"A Good Man is Hard to Find" is a very interesting short story.  In this story, chance plays a very big role.  So many things that happened were because of chance, and these chance happenings led to other chance happenings.  For example, there was a chance that Bailey would decide to not go down the road where the house with the secret panel was supposed to be.  When they did go down that road and grandmother remembered that the house was in Tennessee, their was a chance that she wouldn't have freaked out as much and that her cat wouldn't have sprang out of where it was hidden.  When the cat ended up landed on Bailey's shoulder, that was by chance.  This led to the car flipping over, by chance.  If Bailey wasn't as freaked out and if he controlled the car better, that might not have happened.  But, because it did, and because The Misfit happened to be there, he came over, and they eventually all ended up dead.  They definitely didn't mean to die that day, but as chance played out, leading from one thing to the next, they did end up dying.

Throughout the story, the words "a good man" keep popping up.  It seems like the grandmother's definition of a  good man is someone who is nice.  She calls Red Sammy a good man after he says that he let two people charge the gas they bought.  He was being nice to them, but in my opinion it still wasn't the right thing to do.  Also, she continues to tell The Misfit that he is a good man.  Her reason for this is that he comes from nice people.  At this point, however, I don't really think she really believes he is nice.  She is saying this just to get him to not shoot her.

The article, "Every Minute of her Life: Flannery O'Conner has an Epiphany(or Three…Thousand)," really helped me understand this short story better, and I after I read the article I went and reread the short story.  The article explains how when the grandmother was with The Misfit, knowing she would probably die, she turned into a good women.  She was transformed into a better person when in the midst of The Misfit, who she knew was dangerous, had a gun, and would eventually shoot her.  It makes a lot of sense.  Like The Misfit said, she would've been a good woman if someone was threatening to shoot her every minute of her life.  I think he said that because no one really is a good person all the time, but she acted good in his presence.  Overall, the article was very helpful, and this story was very good.  I'm still wondering, however, if there is a meaning in why the kids and their parents didn't seem to care about the grandmother, and why they acted so rude toward her(the kids acted badly toward everyone--especially June Star).

Response After Finishing The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail

This week I finished reading the play The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail.  It was such a good book, and I really enjoyed the ending.  Anyway, as I read this play, I found a few examples of irony in it.  One would be that Sam Staples, a tax collector, tells Henry his taxes must be paid, and then says that he will pay the taxes for him.  I think it’s ironic how his job is to make sure everyone pays their taxes, yet he is willing to let Henry not pay his taxes, and just pay Henry’s taxes for him.  Also, a similar example of irony is shown he was put in jail because he didn’t pay his taxes, but even after they got paid by his Aunt, he didn’t want to leave jail, because it would mean that his taxes were paid, and he didn’t want them to be.  Finally, when Sam told Henry that because his taxes had been paid there was no charge against him and he shouldn’t be in jail, it was very ironic.  This is because Bailey has been waiting in jail for three months without a real charge against him yet(since he hasn’t had a trial yet), and Sam is completely fine with it.  This is why I’m very glad that a promise was made that if Henry left jail, Bailey would get his trial immediately.

Next, the three most important characters in this play would probably be Henry, Waldo, and John.  A present day actor who I think would play Henry well is Daniel Day-Lewis.  I think Henry looks a lot like Abraham Lincoln, and Day-Lewis looked a lot like him too when he played Lincoln in a movie.  Also, Henry is a thoughtful, somewhat serious person.  Judging by his acting in Lincoln, Day-Lewis is very good at playing this type of person.  As for Waldo, I believe that Russell Crowe would do a good job being him.  This is because he’s an actor who usually plays an important role in a serious movie.  Most of his characters are smart and serious, and he never does comedies.  Waldo seems very serious, and is a wise person who is good with words, so I think it would work well for Crowe to play him.  Finally, John, Henry’s brother, is another important character.  John seems to share similar views with Henry, just less extreme views.  Also, John is funny, and seems like a fun person to be with who really cared about Henry.  This one was harder, but if I had to pick an actor to play John, I think it would be Robert Downey Jr.  This is because like John, Robert seems like a funny, easy to get along with kind of person.

So, after reading this play, an important question to consider is whether or not Thoreau ended up being successful in his protests against the war.  I would say yes, even though his tax ended up being paid by Henry’s aunt.  I’m saying yes to this question because Henry still proved his point that he personally will not pay taxes to support a war he didn’t believe in.  This showed he was dedicated to what he believed in and was willing to stand up for his beliefs.  Yes, Henry may not have influenced people to end the Mexican War by doing what he did, but he didn’t give up on his protests, so he was still successful.

Quote From The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail--How it Reflects Transcendental Thought

"Our own school, John.  No buildings.  Break out of the classroom prison.  All we need is the sky!"  This quote from Henry David Thoreau in The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail really reflects Transcendental thought.  A big thing that Transcendentalists believed in was the concept of seeking nature and action.  They believed that the best way to learn was to go outside and get experiences of your own.  In this quote, when Henry is talking about John and him having a school of their own, he says, "All we need is the sky!"  This reflects the Transcendental thought of going outside and getting real experiences.  Also, Transcendentalists really believed that formal education got into the way of real learning.  They didn't think that sitting around in a classroom with textbooks and a curriculum telling the teachers exactly what to teach and the students exactly what they needed to learn was a good way for a school to work.  In this quote the typical school classroom is called a prison, which I think fits perfectly with Transcendentalism.  When reading the quote, it is easy to tell that Thoreau was very excited about having his own school where he could dismiss formal education and go out into the world to truly teach his students.  I really like this quote, and I agree with the Transcendental thought that people learn better when they are outside of a classroom and are getting their own experiences.