#4 Southern Grotesque

When I think about the story “A Hard Man Is Hard to Find” the most southern grotesque character in the story is the grandmother. Right off the bat she makes it known that she doesn’t want to go on this trip by the way she talks about The Misfit. The grandma says “…I wouldn’t take my children in any direction with a criminal like that aloose in it. I couldn’t answer to my conscience if I did.” Although she still goes with the whole family on this trip. The southern grotesque comes from the grandma when she starts talking about the young boy they see on the side of the road and how she pointed out that the boy didn’t have any pants on and that he probably didn’t own any. From this and the way the grandma talks about it you might think that she is racist to a point. You can notice her attitude towards things when the family pulls off to stop at Red Sammy’s and asks the woman who works there if she is ashamed because the young girl just insulted where they work/live. You start to think that the grandmother is changing her mind about the trip when she suggests to stop at a plantation that she visited when she was a young girl. Which this leads to the family to crashing the car and this is when they meet The Misfit. Ironically she is didn’t want to go on this trip because of him and now she meets him because the car crashed. Throughout the whole story the grandmother is rude, inconsiderate, demining, and more. Yet in the end with her family and herself dying, I believe that she “had it coming” because what comes around goes around. Although dying was a little dramatic but what story that we have read for this class hasn’t ended how we thought?