What does being a lady mean for the grandmother? As you can gather from the clothes, it's in part a matter of appearances, of looking "nice" and "respectable." It's also a matter of manners and of being respectful. "You wouldn't shoot a lady, would you?" (86) She'll also appeal to being a "lady" in trying to get The Misfit not to shoot her: If the grandmother's going to die, she better darn well die looking like a lady (she does, by the way, although her hat gets a bit disheveled). In case of an accident, anyone seeing her dead on the highway would know at once that she was a lady. Her collars and cuffs were white organdy trimmed with lace and at her necklace she had pinned a purple spray of cloth violets containing a sachet. This characteristic of herself is very important: A big question to consider is what kind of role does manipulation play in her encounter with The Misfit, when getting her way will amount to keeping her life? A Lady of the Old SouthĪnother important thing we learn about the grandmother is that she considers herself a lady. So the grandmother's seems to be selfish, and tries to satisfy her selfishness by manipulating people. "There was a secret panel in this house," she said craftily, not telling the truth but wishing that she were, "and the story went that all the family silver was hidden in it when Sherman came through but it was never found." (45) Her solution? Let the kids get him to do it: The grandmother decides she wants to go see the old plantation, but knows Bailey won't want this. Instead of causing a ruckus (Bailey's the type who would make a big stink), the grandmother just hides the cat in a basket and secretly brings it along. We learn that Bailey doesn't want her to bring the cat. The rest of the story shows the grandmother doing more of the same. For some reason, though, we don't quite believe her. It's not about her, she implies, it's about the children. When that doesn't seem to get a reaction, her next recourse is to say that the children have already been to Florida. I couldn't answer to my conscience if I did." (1) I wouldn't take my children in any direction with a criminal like that aloose in it. How does she try to get Bailey not to go to Florida? Not by saying, "Well I want to go to Tennessee," but by trying to scare him with reports of a criminal on the loose and guilt trip him about taking his children there: Notice that she never does this directly or confrontationally, though. Whenever something runs up against the grandmother's will, she tries to have it her way. She was seizing every chance to try to change Bailey's mind. ![]() The first thing we learn about her is that she doesn't want to go to Florida because she's got relatives to see in Tennessee. No two ways about it: the grandmother in "A Good Man is Hard to Find" is a manipulator. The Grandmother A Granny Who Gets What She Wants
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