A Good Man is Hard to Find

Foreshadowing is one of the most prominent literary devices used in this story. For example, at the very beginning, the grandmother warns the family that The Misfit is on the loose and could pose a danger. She tells Bailey that she “wouldn’t take my children in any direction with a criminal on the loose. I couldn’t answer to my conscience if I did” (Paragraph 1). This comment foreshadows the family’s meeting and ultimately being killed by The Misfit.

Later, in the car, the grandmother wears her best clothes and hat so that “in case of an accident, anyone seeing her dead on the highway would know at once that she was a lady” (Paragraph 12). This narration foreshadows the grandmother’s death by the side of the road as well as her final conversation with The Misfit in which she tries to use her status as a lady to save herself. On the trip, the family passes “by a cotton field with five or six graves fenced in the middle of it, like a small island” (Paragraph 22). There are six passengers in the car, including the baby, foreshadowing their deaths.