Both the grandmother and Misfit live by beliefs that affect their actions and way of thinking. Rather than ending the story with a happy ending, the author ends with the grandmother begging to live. Her inability to remain quiet is unfortunately the cause of the entire family’s death. Towards the ending the central theme that O'Connor writes this short story based on, the Grandmother versus the Misfit or good person versus bad person, is revealed. The problem in “A Good Man is Hard to Find” is not that everybody is guilty of something, but that no one in the story is willing to admit to being wrong. The grandmother does not see the wronging of her ways until she realizes that the Misfit is going to actually kill her. The short story ends with an impressive line from the Misfit when he says, “She would have been a good woman if it had been someone there to shoot her every minute of her life” (O’Connor 51). According to O’Connor, in “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” the family’s wayward lives are given direction in their final moments, and they are at last on the right road (O’Connor