In the short story A Good Man is Hard to Find, a family goes on a road trip, but crash their car and ended up killed by a criminal known as the Misfit. One of the themes in the story is the conflict between societal morality and personal morality.
The story begins with a family consisting of Bailey, his wife, their children John Wesley and June Star, and their grandmother. The grandmother is against the road trip but goes with them, secretly bringing her cat for fear of it killing itself while left alone. Things start out normal, until the grandmother remembers an old plantation nearby that she visited when she was younger, so she lies and says that there was a secret panel in the building, causing the children to throw a fit to go to the old plantation. The grandmother then remembers that the plantation is actually in another state, accidentally kicking her cat and causing Bailey to crash his car. The family recovers from the crash, and they are found by the Misfit. The Misfit systematically kills the entire family, starting with Bailey and his son, finishing with the grandmother. Meanwhile, the grandmother tries to convince the Misfit not to kill her. She tries to appeal to his morals, only to find that he lives by no one but himself. Finally, she reaches out and calls him her own child, and he shoots her three times in the chest, killing her.
In the story, the grandmother has a strict adherence to societal morals. She kept a firm hold on her old morals from when she was young. this is demonstrated when she chastised her grandchildren for not showing respect to their home state and other people. This is also demonstrated when she tried to convince the Misfit to not kill her. She said, “I know you wouldn’t shoot a lady! I know you come from nice! Pray! Jesus, you ought not to shoot a lady.” Here, she believes that people aren’t supposed to shoot ladies, because societal morals say so.
The Misfit, on the other hand, doesn’t care what society thinks of what he does. He only lives by his own morals, and his morals are to do as he sees fit. He says, “I found out the crime don’t matter. You can do one thing or you can do another, kill a man or take a tire off his car, because sooner or later you’re going to forget what it was you done and just be punished for it.” Basically, he believes that it doesn’t matter what you do, and in the end, your consequences are highly random. Sometimes, “good” people end up punished for things they’ve never done, and “bad” people get off scott free.
In conclusion, the short story involves the conflicting ideals of the grandmother and the Misfit. The grandmother believes in a grand overarching set of morals that everyone should follow, while the Misfit only obeys his own set of very different morals.