It is quite possible that the children and their behavior in Flannery O'Connor's "A Good Man is Hard to Find" are, in part, responsible for the story's outcome.
There is no question that the youngsters are obnoxious. When the grandmother tries to convince her son to change the location of their vacation the night before they leave, John Wesley (her grandson) tells the older woman:
If you don't want to go to Florida, why dontcha stay at home?
June Star, the boy's sister, is equally nasty and disrespectful:
She wouldn't stay home for a million bucks...Afraid she'd miss something. She has to go everywhere we go.
The grandmother never stops talking, but neither do the children. The older woman chatters on incessantly and even tells her son how to drive. John Wesley criticizes Tennessee as a "hillbilly dumping ground." They are all childish as they argue back and forth. The commentary taking place in the back of the car creates a tense and anxious mood. It is increased when the children begin to fight. John Wesley and June Star get into a disagreement and...
...they began to slap each other over the grandmother.
When they stop for something to eat at Red Sam's, June Star is, not surprisingly, nasty to Sam's wife, who has tried to make polite conversation. When the family gets on the road again, it has become hot. The heat and close confines of the car even make the reader uncomfortable! As they continue to drive, the grandmother recalls a home she once visited nearby that she would like to stop and see again. She knows that her son will not be agreeable, but the more she talks about it, the more she wants to see it. So she deceitfully elicits the help of the children by making up lies and leading them to believe that there is a secret panel and a treasure inside the house.
"There was a secret panel in this house," she said craftily, not telling the truth but wishing that she were, "and the story went that all the family silver was hidden in it when Sherman came through but it was never found..."
John Wesley is beside himself with excitement at the prospect of seeing such a place and he begins to ask his father to stop there.
"We never have seen a house with a secret panel!" June Star shrieked. "Let's go to the house with the secret panel! Hey Pop, can't we go see the house with the secret panel!"
The grandmother chimes in, encouraging her son to find the house. He firmly says no.
The children began to yell and scream that they wanted to see the house with the secret panel. John Wesley kicked the back of the front seat and June Star hung over her mother's shoulder and whined desperately into her ear...
The uncontrollable children continue to complain that they are never allowed to do anything that they want to do. The baby starts to scream and...
John Wesley kicked the back of the seat so hard that his father could feel the blows in his kidney.
At this point, Bailey (the children's father) stops the car and begins to yell. He tells everyone to shut up—but the grandmother pushes her son once more, telling him that the stop would be "educational" for the youngsters.
By now the atmosphere in the car has reached a fevered pitch. The baby is screaming, the kids are kicking or whining, it is hot outside, and the grandmother has simply continued nagging her son in the same manner she started the night before.
Bailey finally agrees, against his better judgment, to turn around and take the turnoff as the grandmother directs. Bailey might have been able to ignore his mother's nagging had it only been her voice he had to listen to. However, he has heard the children complaining and fighting, and now they have turned their unruly and disrespectful attention on him. For a little peace and quiet (we can infer), he agrees to the demands of the three most inflexible and obnoxious people in the car.
Suddenly the grandmother realizes she has made an enormous mistake—the house she remembers is not in Georgia, but actually in Tennessee. When it comes to her that they are not only in the wrong place, but (even worse) in the wrong state, she startles the cat she has hidden in the backseat. It jumps onto Bailey's shoulder causing the car to veer out of control and turn over. It is only because Bailey follows his mother's directions that this occurs. Unable to drive the car, they are stranded. It is there that the Misfit finds them.
Had the children been quietly sitting in the back seat reading and playing nicely, we can assume that Bailey would never have changed direction. While the grandmother is seriously responsible, the children's behavior is also a factor in this tragedy. Otherwise, the family members would never have been placed in this dangerous situation that leads to their deaths.
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