On my drive last month from Pismo Beach to San Francisco, Google Maps took me on a weird detour away from the highway. I went from going 80 on a straight, well-paved highway to going half the speed on a dirt road that could have doubled as a hiking trail.
The windy path took us deep into the rolling brown hills of California’s Central Valley, and I couldn’t help but wonder what would happen if Alyssa’s 20-year-old car broke down.
Would AAA even have service in the area?
How long could I last with two bottles of water?
Amidst these musings, I couldn’t help but think about how much the desolation reminded me of the setting in Flannery O’Connor’s short story “A Good Man Is Hard To Find”.
In my foggy driving brain, I could almost envision the plot playing itself out in the desolate landscape that I was driving through. While replaying the short story in my head, I came to some realizations and thoughts that would really only make sense if I gave a short summary of the story. So here it is (spoilers!).
In O’Connor’s story, a family of four, along with the father’s mother, go on a road trip. Along the way, they make some stops and meet some people, and there’s a recurring conversational theme about the moral decline of people in recent times.
You can’t trust them anymore, you’ve got to lock your front door at night, that sort of thing. None of the conversations really pinpoint a specific cause for what’s caused this collective decline in morality, but everyone in the short story universe agrees that the decline is there.
While the family’s on the highway, they decide to make a detour on the grandma’s recommendation, and they go through a windy, desolate dirt road, one that’s so unkempt, that the car breaks down.
Not too long after, a car passes by, and the driver steps out to help push the family’s car out of the ditch.
This altruistic deed initially seems to be a welcome contrast to the story’s recurring theme of society’s collective moral decline. Perhaps, good men aren’t that hard to find.
But then, the grandma recognizes that the good Samaritan helping the family is actually an infamous killer known as the Misfit.
She unwittingly blurts this out, causing the Misfit to shake his head sadly and apologize.
First, the Misfit has the father and the son killed. Then, the mother and the daughter. And finally, it’s the grandma’s turn, and the Misfit has a gun to her head.
The grandma’s hysterical and begging for mercy, but being an experienced killer, the Misfit is unmoved. Suddenly, the grandma stops pleading and looks at the Misfit with clear eyes. She exclaims, “Why you’re one of my babies. You’re one of my own children!”
Shocked, the Misfit recoils and shoots the grandma twice in the chest, killing her. He then mutters, “She would of been a good woman if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life.”
On my re-read of this story, I felt an extreme sense of sadness. Not so much for the death of the grandma or the family, but for the Misfit.
The grandma’s final act was a miraculous expression of unconditional love towards a man who has just murdered her entire family.
Yet, the Misfit’s world is so dark and cynical that he can’t see grace even if it’s staring straight at him in the face.
To me, this is O’Connor’s final word on the story’s theme about society’s collective moral decline. The same cynicism that causes the Misfit to dismiss a beautiful act of grace is the same cynicism that causes people to lock their doors at night and mistrust others.
Sadly, this view of humanity as utilitarian automatons is pretty widespread these days. A standard assumption in mainstream economic models, for example, is that people are rational, which economists define as using all available information to maximize one’s well-being.
In the world of the Misfit and economic models, selfless actions become a thin veneer above an underworld of ulterior motives.
Sacrifice becomes a calculated ploy to win more followers to your cause. Forgiveness becomes a way to project magnanimity. Faith in God becomes a game-theory problem.
To me, so much of life boils down to what we think of the grandma’s last words. We can choose to see miracles happening around us every day in the form of unconditional acts of love. Or, we can live in a cold, utilitarian world where grace is impossible.