Is it Grandma's fault.... ("A Good Man is Hard to Find")?

Question

Do you think the Grandmother in "A Good Man is Hard to Find" is somewhat to blame for what happened on that trip? If it hadn't been for her, do you think what happened would of happened?

Here's a link to the story (very short) if you'd like:
http://pegasus.cc.ucf.edu/~surette/goodman.html

Answer 1

I do think that it's the grandma's fault that they got lost. I don't think that it is her fault that they ran into the killer...it was fated to happen. I think the Misfit would have killed everyone anyway. That's the whole irony of the story...if he had not killed them, (or all of them) then grandma would have been correct when she kept telling him that she knew he had some good inside. Sparing their lives would have proved her correct and the story would not have had the impact that it has.
Throughout the entire story the grandma nags everyone to death and has this air about her...you just want to slap her. And when she dies in the end, you kinda feel guilty for being glad that she's gone. In the end, the Misfit says, "She would have been a good woman if it had been someone there to shoot her every minute of her life". Without the twisted turn of events, the story (and the Misfit) would have never arrived at that conclusion.
I think it's difficult to speculate about what would have happened if it weren't for the grandmother. Everything that happened was perfectly scripted to the point where it really could not have happened any other way. That is the beauty of Flannery's stories.
I hope that helps! :-)