This grotesque tale of sudden violence in the rural South opens quietly, with a family planning a vacation. The husband, Bailey, his wife, and their children, John Wesley and June Star, all want to go to Florida. The grandmother, Bailey’s mother, however, wants to go to east Tennessee, where she has relatives, and she determinedly attempts to persuade them to go there instead. Unable to convince them that the trip to Tennessee will be novel and broadening for the children, the grandmother offers as a final argument a newspaper article that states that a psychopathic killer who calls himself The Misfit is heading toward Florida.
Ignoring the grandmother’s wishes and warnings, the family sets out the next morning for Florida. The grandmother settles herself in the car ahead of the others so that her son will not know that she has brought along her cat, Pitty Sing, hidden in a basket under her seat. As the trip proceeds, she chatters away, pointing out interesting details of scenery, admonishing her son not to drive too fast, telling stories to the children. Throughout the drive, the children squabble, the baby cries, the father grows irritable. In short, the trip is both awful and ordinary, filled with the trivia, boredom, and petty rancors of daily life, from which the family cannot escape, even on vacation.
At lunchtime, they stop at Red Sammy’s, a barbecue eatery, where the grandmother laments that “people are certainly not nice like they used to be,” and Red Sammy agrees: “A good man is hard to find.” In this conversation, the grandmother, narrow-minded and opinionated, repeatedly assures herself that she is a lady, a good Christian, and a good judge of character: She maintains that Red Sammy, a bossy loudmouth, is a “good man” and that Europe “was entirely to blame for the way things were now.”
After they leave the roadhouse, the grandmother manipulates her son into making a detour to see an old plantation she once visited as a girl. Suddenly, she remembers that the plantation is not in Georgia but in Tennessee. She is so upset at this realization that she jumps up and upsets her valise, whereupon the cat jumps out onto her son’s shoulder, her son loses control of the car, the car overturns, and they all land in a ditch.
As they emerge, an old, “hearse-like” automobile comes over the hill and stops for them. Three men step out, one of whom the grandmother instantly identifies as The Misfit. The grandmother, realizing that he intends to kill them, tries to talk him out of it by appealing to his chivalry, urging him not to shoot a lady. Then she tries flattery, asserting that she can tell that he is a “good man.” She tries to tempt him by suggesting that he stop being an outlaw and settle down to a comfortable life. She urges him to pray to Jesus for help and forgiveness. Finally she tries to bribe him with money. All these tactics fail. As she talks with him, he has his henchmen take the other members of the family to the woods and shoot them.
Although The Misfit rejects all the grandmother’s arguments, he listens to them closely; he pays particular attention when the grandmother refers to Jesus. Indeed, The Misfit declares, “Jesus was the only One that ever raised the dead. . . . He thrown everything off balance. If He did what He said, then it’s nothing for you to do but throw away everything and follow him.” In his intense pride, however, The Misfit maintains that he is unable to believe without having been a witness; therefore, “it’s nothing for you to do but enjoy the few minutes you got left the best way you can—by killing somebody or burning down his house or doing some other meanness to him. No pleasure but meanness.”
When the grandmother is at last alone with The Misfit, she abandons all of her tactics. Her head clears for an instant, in which she sees the murderer as thin, frail, and pathetic. Declaring “Why you’re one of my babies. You’re one of my own children!” she reaches out and touches him. He recoils in revulsion and shoots her. Having been witness to the grandmother’s moment of grace, The Misfit admits that “meanness” has lost its kick: “It’s no real pleasure in life.”
This grotesque tale of sudden violence in the rural South opens quietly, with a family planning a vacation. The husband, Bailey, his wife, and their children, John Wesley and June Star, all want to go to Florida. The grandmother, Bailey’s mother, however, wants to go to east Tennessee, where she has relatives, and she determinedly attempts to persuade them to go there instead. Unable to convince them that the trip to Tennessee will be novel and broadening for the children, the grandmother offers as a final argument a newspaper article that states that a psychopathic killer who calls himself The Misfit is heading toward Florida.Ignoring the grandmother’s wishes and warnings, the family sets out the next morning for Florida. The grandmother settles herself in the car ahead of the others so that her son will not know that she has brought along her cat, Pitty Sing, hidden in a basket under her seat. As the trip proceeds, she chatters away, pointing out interesting details of scenery, admonishing her son not to drive too fast, telling stories to the children. Throughout the drive, the children squabble, the baby cries, the father grows irritable. In short, the trip is both awful and ordinary, filled with the trivia, boredom, and petty rancors of daily life, from which the family cannot escape, even on vacation.At lunchtime, they stop at Red Sammy’s, a barbecue eatery, where the grandmother laments that “people are certainly not nice like they used to be,” and Red Sammy agrees: “A good man is hard to find.” In this conversation, the grandmother, narrow-minded and opinionated, repeatedly assures herself that she is a lady, a good Christian, and a good judge of character: She maintains that Red Sammy, a bossy loudmouth, is a “good man” and that Europe “was entirely to blame for the way things were now.”
After they leave the roadhouse, the grandmother manipulates her son into making a detour to see an old plantation she once visited as a girl. Suddenly, she remembers that the plantation is not in Georgia but in Tennessee. She is so upset at this realization that she jumps up and upsets her valise, whereupon the cat jumps out onto her son’s shoulder, her son loses control of the car, the car overturns, and they all land in a ditch.
As they emerge, an old, “hearse-like” automobile comes over the hill and stops for them. Three men step out, one of whom the grandmother instantly identifies as The Misfit. The grandmother, realizing that he intends to kill them, tries to talk him out of it by appealing to his chivalry, urging him not to shoot a lady. Then she tries flattery, asserting that she can tell that he is a “good man.” She tries to tempt him by suggesting that he stop being an outlaw and settle down to a comfortable life. She urges him to pray to Jesus for help and forgiveness. Finally she tries to bribe him with money. All these tactics fail. As she talks with him, he has his henchmen take the other members of the family to the woods and shoot them.
Although The Misfit rejects all the grandmother’s arguments, he listens to them closely; he pays particular attention when the grandmother refers to Jesus. Indeed, The Misfit declares, “Jesus was the only One that ever raised the dead. . . . He thrown everything off balance. If He did what He said, then it’s nothing for you to do but throw away everything and follow him.” In his intense pride, however, The Misfit maintains that he is unable to believe without having been a witness; therefore, “it’s nothing for you to do but enjoy the few minutes you got left the best way you can—by killing somebody or burning down his house or doing some other meanness to him. No pleasure but meanness.”
When the grandmother is at last alone with The Misfit, she abandons all of her tactics. Her head clears for an instant, in which she sees the murderer as thin, frail, and pathetic. Declaring “Why you’re one of my babies. You’re one of my own children!” she reaches out and touches him. He recoils in revulsion and shoots her. Having been witness to the grandmother’s moment of grace, The Misfit admits that “meanness” has lost its kick: “It’s no real pleasure in life.”
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