The family went silent when all of the sudden, Bang! Bang! In such a loud manner that the birds silently rose from their nests. Yet Flannery O' Connor's story “A Good Man is Hard to Find” is far from a horror story or a ghastly true event. It comes from a realistic point of view in a time where everyday events like this were running a muck. The character’s themselves are believable with their banal names so much so that the decisions that they make are often vigorous, along with the difficult obstacles that they face.

To begin with, the character's in “A Good Man is Hard to Find” represent realism in a way in which they convince the reader that they're ordinary everyday people. For instance, when the Grandmother exclaims, “Why you're one of my babies. You're one of my own children!”; when the dialogue expresses that type of emotion that a normal person would spew out then it shows realistic overtones. During the time when she published this story the world was receiving improvements in both social sciences and industrialism, causing many people to want to read a story that was based off of what they were going through. In a sense, the Grandmother's character throughout the story changes as do regular people. As human beings we change as an individual or often change our opinions on matters that we thought of differently before. Much so, that it conflict the decisions that we choose to make.

Emphasizing on this, is by looking at the way the Grandmother and the Misfit decided to choose the choices they made. First, the Grandmother decide to trick her family into going to a house in a location that is even unfamiliar to her. This is her decision and eventually she will pay her price to it. What O' Connor was trying to say in this is that we all have an unlimited supply of choices, however all of those choices come with a price. On the contrary, the Misfit also makes a big decision that changes his life as well, when he says, “she [the grandmother ] would have been a good woman, if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life.” By killing the family the Misfit has shown the reader that if you are a certain way they act a certain way. This shows realistic and religious tones in the story, in modern society religious views in a story were popular during this time. Even though the character’s later spawn the decisions that they make, every choice comes with a consequence and an obstacle that they have to pass.

In a final turn of events, the obstacles that the character's conflict after making their decisions also show realism. Although the story ends with the Grandmother dying stories often never finish. It is possible to foreshadow what happens next. For example, the fact that the Misfit chose to kill the entire family will cost him his life in the end. In realistic situations if a horrendous crime is committed then the person responsible will receive a charge. In this case the story is hidden more with context then truth.

In conclusion, the repetition of the gun fires heard in “A Good Man is Hard to Find” is a realistic story that deals with the believability of the character's along with the decisions that they make that will eventually lead to the obstacles that they must face. An enriching story of religious context and an overview of the difference between saying what you want to say and acting upon what you say. Whether or not the Grandmother's final act was an act of charity or redemption, the story still professes to be careful of what decisions are made and which ones are tossed aside.