This could exactly describe this short story and O'Connor's writing at the same time. She also invented unique and rich characters that the reader comes to care about. Critic Votteler continues, "O'Connor also infused her fiction with the local color and rich comic detail of her Southern milieu, particularly through Southern dialect, which she recorded with a keen ear" (Votteler 333). Thus, her writing represents the people and landscape of the South, and makes the reader feel as if they have known these people all their lives, just as she did. .

             O'Connor uses several literary devices in this short story. One of the first to greet the reader is the use of foreshadowing. The Grandmother influences where the family is going on vacation by scaring them with tales of The Misfit, the convict who has broken out of jail and is probably heading to Florida. This is where the rest of the family wants to go, but she urges them to go to Tennessee instead, and ultimately seals their fate. Already, the reader has an uneasy feeling about The Misfit, and it is easy to tell that eventually, the family is going to run into him, or he would not appear as a concern so early in the story. The Misfit continues to turn up throughout the story in conversations and in the background of each character's mind, and so, it is clear when the story reaches a climax, The Misfit will be at the center of it. It seems inevitable from the very beginning of the story that the family is heading toward an important and unavoidable fate, and that indicates O'Connor's skill at foreshadowing. It is subtle, but it is always there, and the reader senses tenseness to the story because of it. .

             Humor is also an important device in O'Connor's literature. One critic, Thomas Votteler, notes, "Moreover, her stories are relates with such ironic detachment and mordant humor that some consider them to be existentialist or even nihilistic in outlook" (Votteler 333).