My name is Nathaniel, and I have read Sparknotes

Sparknotes is a website where sports medicine majors go to read short summaries of literature and character analyses so they can plagiarize the site in hopes of getting a C from a lazy teacher's assistant or something of the sort. All of my academia friends speak of websites like sparknotes with vile hatred, and I can understand since their whole purpose is to make it possible for lazy students to not have to dig on their own through stories.

However, I read it frequently for a lot of my readings in many classes. Not as a replacement for reading the actual work, but as kindling to start my criticism. The problem for me is I don't really know how to do criticism. I am a kid hammering on a piano with no training. I'm no dummy, so I can sometimes find something melodic and go with it, but it's amateur at best. So sparknotes is like Fisher Price my-first-literary-criticism.

I bring this up because, after reading Flannery O'Connor's "A Good Man is Hard to Find," I was madly in love with the story, but wasn't able to articulate exactly what was going on under the surface of the story. I sensed religious tones, regionalism, and characters that were more complex than "hero" and "villain," but I just couldn't figure it out. The Misfit and the grandmother's dialogue with each other at the end intrigued me, but I didn't know why.

So I went to sparknotes, and read up on it. And what I read about The Misfit was the most interesting because I completely disagreed with sparknotes.

"He has carefully considered his actions in life and examined his experiences to find lessons within them. He has even renamed himself because of one of these lessons, believing that his punishment didn’t fit his crime. Because the Misfit has questioned himself and his life so closely, he reveals a self-awareness that the grandmother lacks...The Misfit’s philosophies may be depraved, but they are consistent. Unlike the grandmother, whose moral code falls apart the moment it’s challenged, the Misfit has a steady view of life and acts according to what he believes is right."

I think they miss the mark saying that The Misfit is consistent. While he is more analytical than the grandmother and her family, there is something within him that isn't satisfied with his philosophy. His cool amoral attitude is challenged by the grandmother, and he cracks. When she talks to him about Jesus, The Misfit, who establishes himself as not one of the faithful, becomes upset about his lack of certainty.

"I wasn't there so I can't say He didn't," The Misfit said. "I wisht I had of been there," he said, hitting the ground with his fist. "It ain't right I wasn't there because if I had of been there I would of known. Listen lady," he said in a high voice, "if I had of been there I would of known and I wouldn't be like I am now." His voice seemed about to crack...

The Misfit obviously isn't so sure about his philosophy of "no pleasure but meanness." When he kills the grandmother immediately after, it seems like a different sort of murder for him. It isn't part of his iconoclastic revenge against society, killing these people that he felt were part of the system that punished him unfairly. He killed the grandmother because she recognized him. She knew who he was, not just him being The Misfit, but who he was to the core of his being, and it scared him.

So, I highly recommend visiting Sparknotes. And then tearing their crappy criticism apart with your own observations about the text.