The grandmother in " A Good Man Is Hard to Find" is a round, dynamic character. She is a quirky protagonist who undergoes a change at the end of the story during her encounter with the antagonist, The Misfit. Until the final paragraphs of the story, the grandmother is selfish and manipulative. She's set in her old fashioned ways.
The author begins the story by telling us that the grandmother wants to go to Tennessee and not to Florida, as her son, Bailey, has planned to go with the family. She states that "she was seizing every chance to change Bailey's mind." (405). It's obvious in this first paragraph that she is willing to manipulate her family to get her way. She tries to affect his conscience by reading to him from the newspaper about The Misfit, a killer "aloose from the Federal Pen and headed toward Florida" (405). She is so set on changing his mind that, when her first attempt gets no response, she tries to convince him that the children need to "see different parts of the world" (405). She is selfish and wants the family to believe that what she wants is best for them.
When it's obvious that she is not getting her way, the grandmother is the first one ready to go. She knows Bailey wouldn't want her to bring her cat to a hotel, so she hides him in a basket. She justifies this to herself by saying that he would miss her too much or "brush against one of the gas burners and accidentally asphyxiate himself" (405). She invents this absurd hypothetical situation because she is more concerned with her desires than those of her family and is willing to twist the truth to suit those desires.
It is the grandmother's belief that in her time things were better. She imagines that people were nicer and "children were more respectful of their native states and parents and everything" (406). This is an example of her changing the truth so things are the way she wants them to be.