Change

Change by definition is to become different than the other or the phase of becoming something else than they are now. Sometimes people change to be a better person, and sometimes people change to be a bad person depending on their preference as change is really depend on that person’s choice. Morality nonetheless play a crucial role in changing people. Morality is connected with change in a way that it influence us to think that a good person must be affected by a good morality and a bad person must be affected by a bad morality, practices along their lifetime. In the story of “A good Man is hard to find”, by Flannery O'Connor portrays how people changed and how change lead to a good thing and sometimes a bad thing. This story is about a family where the Misfit murdered them after their accident. The author, O’Connor, highlight the fact that people do experience change in their life as portrayed by the characters in the story and how morality of those characters affect changes in people; and there are several factors that lead people to change like influence, age, and experience.

The first act of change is through the influence of other people. People often experience influenced by other people and thus change our mind also our personality. For instance, real life example would be the current election. How do the candidates influence people to cast vote on them? Of course by influence; and by influence meaning that they influence people to vote them using the media, pamphlet, internet and many more. Thus, in the short story, there is a part where it shows how the character changes by the influence of other character. The Grandmother is the character who successfully influence Bailey’s mind which is his son to go to east Tennessee instead of Florida. How did the Grandmother successfully influence Bailey to change his mind? In the story, the Grandmother said to Bailey “Here is this fellow that calls himself The Misfit aloose from the Federal Pen and headed toward Florida” (O'Connor, 1953) show how the grandmother use The Misfit as an excuse to change Bailey’s mind to go to Tennessee. The grandmother warns Bailey how dangerous it is to go to Florida and ask him to go to Tennessee instead. This shows how people influence other people to change their mind in an instance. The morality also presence in this example where Bailey, as a son to the grandmother, obey her instruction and sets an example or morality of a good behavior of children to their parents

As age increases, people will experience change phase of their life. From a baby to a kid, from a kid to a teenager, and from a teenager to an adult show how the phases of change occur throughout our lives. As generation goes by, they will experience changes in their life whether in manners, technology and everything else will change according to the respective generations. People can never escape this phase of change. This phase of change affects our morality as we grow up. In the story of “A Good Man Is Hard to Find”, the author show some examples of how age affect the morality of a person. The first example would be the situation where June Star and John Wesley are acting rudely towards their grandmother. The grandmother said “In my time, children are more respectful towards their native state and their parents” (O'Connor, 1953) showed us, the reader, how inappropriate it is to act in way that it could hurt our parent’s feeling and as we grow up, we surely will catch the manners. Another example would be the example portrayed by Uncle Sam showed how previous generations morality and compare it to the morality of people in the current days. Red Sammy said “Everything is getting terrible. I remembered the day you could go off and leave your screen door unlatched” (O'Connor, 1953) demonstrate how the previous generations could change to be worse generations in that time. People will experience change when they grow and up no matter what it is, they will have to change. That change depends on whether it is a good or a bad change.

Past experience thought us many things and we learn from past experience. Those past experience will lead us to change from who we are now to what we are going to be next. People learn from their mistakes and learn how to change their mistake and be a better person. If you fall, you will not want to stay down forever. Instead, you look for ways to get up from falling again. That is why past experience is crucial in shaping people’s change. In the story of, the author focus the past experience of people and show them how it affects people to change. For instance, the story of The Misfit’s past experience where he is once a gospel singer when he was young and turns out to be a criminal during his adult’s life. Even he, himself does not have the reason why he would experience that vast changes in his life. He saw some painful experience and in my analysis, that is the reason why he turns out to be a bad person in the end. The Misfit says to the grandmother “I been most everything. Been in the arm services, both land and sea, seen a man burnt alive and also seen a women flogged” (O'Connor, 1953). This past painful experiences led The Misfit to be a criminal as he was exposed in many worse situation during his early life. Imagine being raised as a child in a situation like The Misfit; everyone will turn out to be the same person as he does. This past experience of misfit also affects his morality in a way that The Misfit becomes the bad people with bad personality. You can never what might people turns out even they have a good morality in the previous days.

There is a quote by Susan Biali on why people are scared of change “The reason you're afraid is that there's leverage here, something that might happen. Which is exactly the signal you're looking for” (Biali, 2011). People are sometimes afraid of something new, or in other words change. They did not want to get out of their own comfort zone because they are afraid to try. Change is a must process for people even for an infant where they learn and change themselves to be a person one day. In this short story by Flannery O'Connor, “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” highlight the value of change and how morality connected to change based on factors of influence, age and experience. All in all, change is a must for people to experience in their life.

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