Why did O'connor make Grandmother a bad person and The Misfit a good person at the end of the story "A Good Man is Hard to Find"?

Yourquestion reflects some confusion about
what actually happens in the endof the story. To start with, Grandmother is a
complaining,unsympathetic character who causes trouble for herself and othersthrough her
persistent ways: "she was seizing at every chance to change Bailey's mind." The Misfit
is a criminal who is a murdererand who has escaped from prison. These are both, in their own
ways andto their own degrees, bad people.

Theend of the story has a surprise
twist to it that is is hinted atearlier on: Grandmother is actually The Misfit's mother; The
Misfit isactually Grandmother's son. She raised him and he knows her; he knowswhat she is
like.

Inthe end, Grandmother flatters and compliments The Misfit so that
hewill not kill her. This isn't exactly bad behavior on Grandmother's partbut it certainly lacks
dignity and integrity. Also in the end, TheMisfit murders, or orders the murders of,
Grandmother's entire family(as she stands by chatting with Misfit ...). This is most assuredly
andclearly bad behavior.

Theincident that is giving you the wrong impression
that O'Connor madeGrandmother bad and Misfit good is the exchange between them just beforeand
just after Misfit fires his gun three times to end Grandmother'slife. Firstly, she says,
"Jesus. Jesus." To her own ears, her utterancessounded like swearing because of the
repetition. Actually her wordswere the choked off prayer and blessing that meant to express,
"Jesuswill help you"--but didn't quite make it. This is actually a good turnthat she
takes in the end because she lets go of her selfishness andcares about and trys to reach out to
help someone else.

Secondly,he says "She would have been a good woman
...." He statement has apositive phrase in it, good woman, so his remark may sound
good.Actually what he means is that she needed someone with every moment ofher life to threaten
her with death so that she wouldn't be the selfish,nagging, trouble-causing unpleasant person
she really was. This is abad, unkind remark (about the mother he just murdered) following a
badaction. Misfit is portrayed as thoroughly bad in the end.