A grandmother's love is often assumed to be unconditional, innocent, and selfless towards her family. For this reason, it becomes unexpected when Flannery O'Connor begins her story A Good Man Is Hard To Find with a grandmother who tries to manipulate her family into going on a family vacation to a destination she rather wants as the desire of the whole family. Throughout the story, her manipulative and vain nature is revealed to the reader through the interactions between the grandmother and the people around her as the family travels to Florida. The grandmother constantly acts in accordance with herself even though she knowingly betrays the trust of her family, even towards the end when she puts them in danger. The other characters in the story remain quite static compared to the more dynamic grandmother and serve as reference points for the reader, clearly demonstrating her selfish intentions. However, to understand the reason for her manipulative nature, one must have a deep understanding of how the grandmother perceives the world around her. To understand the logic behind the grandmother's actions, consideration of what her past life may have been is very essential. O'Connor writes this story in the 3rd person omniscient allowing the reader to have limited access to the grandmother's thoughts. A feeling of distrust immediately sets in at the beginning of the story when the grandmother did not want to go to Florida and “took every opportunity to change Bailey's mind” (193). Along with the sense of distrust in the relationship between the reader and the grandmother created by her actions, aspects of an aristocratic lifestyle that once engulfed the grandmother begin to surface. Character... middle of paper ... she still has it even though the car she was in flipped over twice. First introduced, the grandmother's religious side surfaces as she begins to preach religious virtue to the Misfit. It is assumed at this point that now, because she has lost everything, she wants to discover redemption and begins to act true to herself in the hopes that she can change the Misfits' lives for the better. When she reaches out and touches The Misfit, it is almost as if she is touching him spiritually with compassion and understanding, causing The Misfit to panic as he responds by firing three bullets into the grandmother's chest. She is lying there in her aristocratic outfit, with a smile on her face. A smile because for the first time in his murderous life, The Misfit discerns the action he has just committed by saying: "It's not a real pleasure in life"..” (205)