What is the significance of the grandmother calling the Misfit her own son and merging her real son with the Misfit in "A Good Man Is Hard to Find?"

Throughout the story, the grandmother has been uncharitable towards her family and other people. Only at the last moment, when she embraces the Misfit as her own son, does she show true charity and love.

Until the end of the story, the grandmother is more concerned with external displays of her class status than with acting in a truly charitable way. For example, she pins a sachet to her neckline so "in case of an...

Throughout the story, the grandmother has been uncharitable towards her family and other people. Only at the last moment, when she embraces the Misfit as her own son, does she show true charity and love.

Until the end of the story, the grandmother is more concerned with external displays of her class status than with acting in a truly charitable way. For example, she pins a sachet to her neckline so "in case of an accident, anyone seeing her dead on the highway would know at once that she was a lady." However, unlike someone with true ladylike behaviors, she displays prejudice and intolerance. When she passes an African-American child by the side of the road who has no pants on, she remarks, "Wouldn't that make a picture, now?" She is not concerned for the child's welfare but only for the artistic possibilities that the child represents. She also tries to convince her son, Bailey, to take her to  Tennessee, despite the fact that the rest of the family wants to go to Florida.

The Grandmother ultimately leads the family to the Misfit and his accomplices when she directs them down a dirt road in Georgia, realizing too late that the old plantation she wants to see is actually in Tennessee. Until the very last moment, she is only concerned with saving herself. Even when she hears her family members being shot, she pesters the Misfit to save her if she gives him a bribe. After her son is killed, she looks at the Misfit at the last moment and says, "Why you're one of my babies. You're one of my own children!" When faced her with own mortality, she drops the veneer of uncharitable and false religiosity that she has been displaying throughout the story and becomes truly charitable. By accepting the Misfit, who is cast aside by society, as one of her own children, she shows that she is truly a lover of humanity. The significance is that at the last moment, she has a conversion to true love of her fellow man after a lifetime of practicing a hypocritical form of religion.