"A Good Man is Hard to Find"

In this story there are what some would refer to as religious pretenders. Differences in the views of what a religious pretender is could make any one character in this story a religious pretender. Is a religious pretender one that relies so heavily on faith that they believe nothing or no one can hurt them? The grandmother in this short story is just that. As she knows her life is about to end she makes a strange comment, " Why you are one of my babies. You are one of my own children!"( O'Connor. 364) This is all said in the midst of a discussion with misfit about Jesus. She seems to be talking as if she is Jesus or He is talking through her.
In the other spectrum, The Misfit could be the religioug pretender. In a heated discussion with the grandmother of whether or not Jesus rose people from the dead he said, "If I had been there Iwould of known and I wouldn't be like I am now." (O'Connor. 364) Acting as if he were one of Jesus's disciples.
In the end, the grandmother relied on her faith and belief in Jesus that she would be safe from all harm. The rest of the family did not act or talk as she did of Jesus. Having true faith did not seem to help the grandmother much at all in the end, when the Misfit shot her. O'Connor's story takes a twist though and puts a question out there....... Is the Misfit a man of true faith or a religious pretender? He can be seeen in both lights, but maybe made to make a reader lean to a man of true faith. The quote above will sum up why. His violence plays a part in all of this too. O'Connor uses the act of killing the religious pretenders, by The Misfit, to show us that they were not of real faith with all the fear they showed. Maybe at the same time showing the grandmother in a naive light of blind faith showed she was a real believer, but still had to die while trying to coddle him (Misfit).