The Misfit is a character of surprising depth. He is first introduced to the readers as a vague fear, one that represents the possibility of violence in the world. Then, at his first appearance, he seems nothing more than a ruthless killer. However, as he talks with the grandmother, he reveals that he sees himself as more than just a perpetrator of violence. He sees himself as a balancing force, not only for the wrongs that he believes were committed against him by the system, but also for what he believes to be the wrongs committed by Jesus and life.
As the Misfit himself explains, he took the name because he did not believe that he had been treated in a way that fit his actions:
I can't make what all I done wrong fit what all I gone through in punishment.
He also explains to the grandmother that Jesus had shown that everything was off balance when he had been punished for things he had not done. However, he later seems to indicate that Jesus himself also made things off balance:
"Jesus was the only One that ever raised the dead," The Misfit continued, "and He shouldn't have done it. He shown everything off balance. If He did what He said, then it's nothing for you to do but throw away everything and follow Him, and if He didn't, then it's nothing for you to do but enjoy the few minutes you got left the best way you can-by killing somebody or burning down his house or doing some other meanness to him. No pleasure but meanness," he said and his voice had become almost a snarl.
In his view on Jesus, as well as in his continued violent acts, we can see that the Misfit views himself, and the pleasure he takes from meanness, as a way to restore balance. He restores balance to life and death by killing others. It is a way for him to right the perceived wrong of Jesus raising the dead. At the same time, he is balancing out his personal history, making the things he has done wrong fit the punishment he has already received.
The Misfit’s quest to balance out the wrongs that he believes have been committed fits with what O’Connor has said about the character, namely that he is a prophet gone wrong. In this way, he represents the path of selfishness and pleasure that leads people away from the Christian sentiments that the grandmother exemplifies in the moments before the Misfit kills her.
In the end, we may see some redemption for the Misfit when he has the following exchange with one of his men:
"She would of been a good woman," The Misfit said, "if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life."
"Some fun!" Bobby Lee said.
"Shut up, Bobby Lee" The Misfit said. "It's no real pleasure in life."
This contradicts his earlier sentiment that the only pleasure in life is meanness. One way to interpret this is that he believes, with his killing of the grandmother, that he has achieved the balance he was seeking, both with respect to his own misdeeds and punishment and with respect to the metaphysical imbalance that he believes Jesus caused by raising the dead.
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