A family decides to take a vacation down to Florida, but the real journey is within each family member and their lives together. The biggest question in the story is what a good man really is and how there are few and far between left in society. Most of the people in the story think highly of themselves based on their morals and values in life. These ethics are extremely flawed within each character and ultimately leaves each one deprived of their own judgment due to their own superiority.
The grandmother thinks of herself as having the best principles and standards out of everyone else in the family. She starts off by not even wanting to go on the trip due to there being a dangerous criminal on the loose from the Federal Pen. Then the next day when they go to leave for Florida she is the first one in the car. She then dresses in her best clothes wearing “white cotton gloves, a navy-blue straw sailor hat, her collars and cuffs were white trimmed with lace, in case of an accident anyone seeing her dead would know at once she was a lady” (517). It is made known that she looks down upon people. The grandmother wanting to go to Tennessee to visit her connections disapproves of the mother’s decision to take them to Florida, “you all ought to take them somewhere else, they would see different parts of the world and be broad” (516). She is extremely manipulative trying to persuade her son to go to Tennessee for his children so that she benefits in the situation and gets what she wants.
In return the little boy John Wesley says, “Tennessee is just a hillbilly dumping ground” (517) she returns with “children were more respectful of their native states and their parents and everything else. People did right back then” (517). Regardless of her being so critical of everyone else around her she never examines her own actions even though she is cunning, deceitful, and self-absorbed. She crucifies her grandson about respecting the native states and his parents but then makes the statement “Oh look at the cute little pickaninny” talking about a black child she sees. (517). She begins to reflect on her day’s way back when on the plantations. This is when her interpretation of a good man starts to be revealed, this too being distorted. She talks being courted by a Mr. Teagarden and how he brought her watermelons to eat, but that she would never marry a man who just brought her watermelons. She would have in fact married him though because he “had bought Coca-Cola sock when it first came out and the he had died only a few years ago, a very wealthy man” (518). She did not think of him as anything but someone with money that could take care of her. Once they encounter the Misfit and he has killed everyone in her family she says “You’ve got good blood! I know you wouldn’t shoot a lady! I know you come from nice people! Pray! Jesus, you ought not to shoot a lady” (526). The grandmother never prays for anyone or asks him to spare anyone except herself.
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Everyone has an idea of who they are and what their standards and principles in life entail. These are everyone’s thoughts of what is right and wrong in the world we all live in. As for the grandma in the story she thinks its all about how much money you have, how your family is looked upon, your own upbringing. Even though she believes that she the epitome of what a lady should be she is cruel and deludes those that she is supposed to love the most. At least the Misfit’s standards are consistent, allowing all those around him to know exactly who he really is always. Overall the good man truly is the Misfit, sticking to who he truly is and not altering his truth.
