How does the encounter with the Misfit change the grandmother and/or our view of her? In what way might we see the encounter with the Misfit as, in O’Connor’s own words, "returning" the grandmother "to reality and preparing [her] to accept [her] moment of grace" ("On Her Own Work")? How does O’Connor characterize the Misfit? What is the significance of the grandmother’s recognizing or mistaking the Misfit for "one of [her] own children" right before she dies? What does the Misfit mean when he says the grandmother "would of been a good woman . . . if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life"?

Respuesta :

Answer:

The Misfit in this plot is a character with a very particular form of hypocrisy. And interestingly enough, this is the most common trait that is found between him and the grandmother.  

The encounter between the grandmother and the Misfit, especially related to the moment when O´Connor writes  "returning" the grandmother  "to reality and preparing [her] to accept [her] moment of grace" is one of the culminating moments, Here we see that he was thinking of ¨returning¨ the grandmother to her grave or of killing her so as to make her ´see´ reality and not as she always was; with an air of superior morality and ´lady-like´ attitude.

O´Connor characterizes the Misfit as a person who really questions himself, his upbringing and the meaning of life, his role in all of this and we learn that he has meditated over his past actions. This shows in the character that he has a self-awareness that the grandmother definitely lacks.

The zenith of the tale, when the grandmother states that,  "one of [her] own children" was just a way of trying to side with the killer. She had understood that her mistake in directions, her way of being in her life, and this moment with someone she feared had all turned on her and she wanted to make a final attempt at getting out alive.

When the Misfit states, "would of been a good woman . . . if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life" he is essentially stating that the grandmother, even though she lacked character traits for a ´real world´, was a good person.