Timothy Allusion in "A Good Man Is Hard To Find", The

Renascence, Summer 2000 by Fike, Matthew

This exploration of O'Connor's allusion to the Epistles to Timothy supports her sense of the interrelation of details, the power of Christian reference, and the principle that "the meaning of a story should go on expanding." The letters are as important to "A Good Man Is Hard to Find" as another text, Human Development, is to "Revelation" (The Complete Stories 488-509): the Pauline material ties together the story's satirical elements by providing a moral and spiritual benchmark that underscores their negativity, and Paul's authorship enables autobiographical connections. Ultimately, Red Sammy's conclusion about goodness is in the spirit of Paul's remarks: a good person is hard to find if grace is denied, but The Misfit and the grandmother embody Paul's confidence that "if we are faithless, he [Christ] remains faithful-for he cannot deny himself' (1 Timothy 2.13). Grace enables a person to transform suffering into moral behavior, rise above an adherence to Law, and love others, becoming, like Timothy, the kind of person Paul considered to be a good man.

Notes

1. Bryant, who makes several of the same points as Woodward but was evidently unaware of the earlier piece, is right to hold that "the towns alluded to along the route which the family travels were chosen for two reasons: first, and most obviously, to foreshadow; and second, to augment the theme of the story" (301). Regarding the Timothy allusion, he states that

it seems likely that she put the town of Timothy on the map because she wanted the reader to pick up the allusion and perhaps refresh himself on the contents of the New Testament, but more probably she saw the parallel between her modern-day characters who have left the main road of Christian faith and Paul's warning to the church when he feared it was in danger off into the byways of heresy. (305)

Bryant sees specific parallels as follows: Paul's statement about a bishop's role indicts the way in which Bailey runs his household (this includes child rearing); Paul's comments on vanity, trivial discussions, modest dress, and silence undercut the grandmother, though she learns the lesson in 1 Timothy 2.5 about Christ as mediator between God and human beings; and Paul's statement on hypocritical liars (1 Timothy 4.1-2) calls to mind The Misfit, whose comment, "`No pleasure but meanness,"' Bryant calls "hedonistic atheism" (305).

2. The phrase "fellow-worker" echoes I Thessalonians 3.2, and Romans 16.21.

3. Paul considers himself Timothy's spiritual parent (e.g., 1 Timothy 1.18), but as Giannone points out, "Paul, extending the sonship of Jesus to all believers in God, calls this new relationship `adoption as sons' (Galatians 4.5)" (75).

4. On "Queen for a Day," "Women would tell stories about their lives generated to evoke sympathy from the audience who would applaud for the woman they deemed most worthy of prizes and the title `Queen for a day"' (Whitt 45).

5. Slaves were responsible for caring for children until the age when they could be educated, notes New Testament Scholar James Brownson. This makes our position without Christ parallel to children in the care of slaves. Plato's Laws, VII.808 seems an appropriate gloss on the children in the story: "When Dawn comes up and brings another day, the children must be sent off to their teachers. Children must not be left without teachers, nor slaves without masters, any more than flocks and herds must be allowed to live without attendants. Of all wild things, the child is the most unmanageable: an unusually powerful spring of reason, whose waters are not yet canalized in the right direction, makes him sharp and sly, the most unruly animal there is" (298).