Use of Foreshadowing in “A Good Man is Hard to Find”

While growing up in Savannah, Georgia Flannery O’Conner’s father becomes diagnosed with Lupus, causing Flannery to face death at an early age. The short story, “A Good Man is Hard to Find” leads to the death of six family members that are traveling through Georgia on their way to Florida. Flannery O’Connor’s use of foreshadowing is a reoccurring motif that gives the reader an ominous feeling of death.
When first reading the story, the deaths of the likable but dysfunctional family come as a surprise. However, reading the story more carefully shows that there are many signs, “ some of these details are barely noticeable at the beginning of a story, and yield their significance slowly, like the seed growing secretly, through repetition”(Yaghjian 269)that gives clues to the reader as to what will happen. The story contains many images of death and the decline of moral character in society.
The reader is given the first image of death by the epitaph that O’Connor...