Surrealism is characterized by unexpected juxtapositions
of fact and the fantastic and non
sequiturs.
Regarding the second half of Flannery
O'Connor's short story, "A Good Man Is Hard to Find" there are some elements that can be
interpreted as surrealistic. For instance, the Misfit's allusion to Jesus is certainly
an odd juxtaposition of himself and Christ in his
imagination:
"Jesus thrown everything off balance. It was the
same case with Him as with me except He hadn't committed any crime and they could prove
I had committed one because they had papers on
me...."
The convict calls
himself "The Misfit" because, he says,
"I can't make what all I done wrong fit what all
I gone through in
punishment."
Certainly, it
seems grotesquely fantastic and non sequitur that the Misfit would
just kill Bailey and his family so he can record his crime and see if it matches his
reported crimes and record. That he would slaughter the grandmother's family because
what he has done wrong does not "fit what all I gone through in punishment" seems
unreal.
In addition, that grace is available from someone
who is gruesome has an surrealistic tone to it. When, for example, the grandmother
recognizes the Misfit as "one of my own children," there is the juxtaposition of the
depravity of man with the grandmother's reception of grace in acknowledging her
sinfulness.
Darkly humorous, but disturbing is the
Mistfit's remark about the grandmother,
"She would have been a good woman....if it had
been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her
life."
This juxtaposition
of grotesque humor with the recognition of the grandmother's redemption, indeed,
suggests an element of
surrealism.
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