Lindsey Blakley
English 102
Laura Cline
4 November 2011
Flannery O’Connor
Twentieth century literature was a time that consisted of many different types of authors. Flannery O’Connor was a very unique author, popular for her technique and her many successful short stories. O’Connor was known for her distinct violent type stories that ended in death or some crazy way. Her last written book of short stories, “Everything that Rises Must Converge,” was considered one of her best pieces of work and was published after her death. Although there were many constant themes present in her short stories, in this specific collection, racism toward people of different ethnicities was very prevalent and always seemed to be tangled into her creative stories.
Flannery O’Connor was born in the year 1929 and raised in Savannah Georgia. She, being raised in the south and living through a time of intergrading blacks and whites together, gives O’Connor a unique but popular style of writing for this time. In her stories she incorporates people of different statues that have different views about one another that add animosity and a good plot to the story. O’Connor wrote in an era of New Criticism which John Skyes describe, “New Criticism might be said to represent at the theoretical level the same struggle with modernism in literature of the Southern Renaissance” (Skyes 28) He also says, “New critics also maintained that literature had to be understood in its own terms suited to its unique discourse” (Skyes 29) O’Connor’s stories were definitely different and her contents were appreciated because how they did well to relate to the time and events taking place around her.
In the first story in O’Connor’s collections in, “Everything that Rises Must Converge,” which is also the name of the story, is about a young man named Julian who just graduated from college and is living with his mother whom he seems to have a constant battle with, mainly due to her racist feeling she has towards black people. Early on in the story Julian states, “…in spite of all her foolish views, he was free of prejudice and unafraid to face facts.” (O’Connor 12) He saying this lets the reader understand that there is turmoil between him and his mother due to their different beliefs. It is not until the end of this story that Julian’s Mother is faced with the realistic truth that black people were equal and it was no longer acceptable to treat them in a non equal way. Julian lectures his mother on just how inappropriate her actions were, "What all this means, is that the old world is gone. The old manners are obsolete and your graciousness is not worth a damn." (O'Connor 21) What is ironic about this story is that Julian’s mother ends up dying at the end of the story. As if this shock of information about how inappropriate she truly was killed her and Julian is left in despair and guilt.
Taking a second look at the first short story “Everything that Rises Must Converge” one can begin to understand just how much tension existed between black people and whites during this time. An American critic by the name of Stanley Edgar Hyman took a much closer look into Flannery O’Connor and her stories. Hyman explains about Julian and his mother, “It is beautifully foreshadowed from the story’s first sentence, but the characters, a travesty segregationist mother and a travesty integrationist son, are not adequate to the finely structured action”. (Hyman 27) The main point of this story was Julian trying to upset his mother, by using a black person, since she is racist, because he knows that it would be the key to get under her skin quick and efficiently. Time and time again in the story one could gather how much Julian wanted his mother to feel the rath of her superior feelings toward black people. O’Connor twist at the end in such a dramatic way that both sides seemed to be punished for their actions of being judgmental and arrogant of one anthers beliefs.
For O’Connor being an author in such a time of change inspired her to have racism as a main theme in her short stories. A woman named Patricia Yaeger, who wrote “Dirt and Desire: Reconstructing Southern Women’s Writing”, also recognize the battle between blacks and whites in her stories. Yaeger states one of the many underlying statements involving racism, “Third, these stories suggest the difficulty white southern culture in freeing itself from specters of ownership-from its obsession with African Americans as objects, as things to be owned-and the question of whether whites can allow a person who has been so commodified to ascend to the status of possessive individualism”. (Yaeger 40) As a reader, one can easily identify this battle. O’Connor has strong feelings of resentment towards blacks by her white characters in some of her stories for wanting to be equal but, in the end it seems as though her white characters are the ones who die in some freakish way.
Although some twentieth century literature could be thought of as racist and appalling, O’Connor did not only write about racism towards black people but also about white people. In her short story “Revelation” Mrs. Turpin, the main character, is a very judgmental women towards just about everyone. Unlike some of O’Connor’s other stories, racism towards black people isn’t the main theme here. It is against “white trash” type of people. Taking place mainly in a doctors waiting room, Mrs. Turpin, looks around judging the others waiting to see the doctor and thinks, “She could tell by the way they sat-kind of vacant and white-trashy, as if they would sit there until Doomsday if nobody called and told them to get up”. (O’Connor 194) What is interesting in this particular short story is just how judgmental and nacicisitc one person can be. Especially a lady who thinks of herself as saint like, thinking in her head how horrible the people around her are and taking a God like statue to decide which people are decent and which aren’t.
Comparing the few stories in the collection, “Everything that Rises must Converge” presents the constant presents of racism while not discriminating races. Robert Avis Donahoo Hewitt is a man who wrote a book called, “Flannery O’Connor In the Age of Terrorism: Essays on Violence and Grace.” He says that, “The combination of power and humiliation that O’Connor builds into her characterization of blacks in this story is also what allows the statue to serve as a representation of Christ”. (Hewitt 136) Although the representation of Christ is not clear, the power and humiliation are. Most characters in her stories often lead to the down fall of the character that perceives them as being better or higher ranking in society than the one being dissected.
In another one of O’Connor’s short stories, “Judgment Day” this story is a bit different from some of the others. An older man, named Tanner moved from Alabama to New York so his daughter could take care of him. When Tanner discovered a black man had moved into a neighboring apartment he was thrilled because this black man brought feelings of familiarity to this Southern raised man. After getting a chance to introduce himself to the black man Tanner attempts to make small talk with the man and be friendly and says, “I thought you might know somewhere around here we could find s a pond, Preacher”. (O’Connor 262) Tanner, assuming that this man was from the South, completely offends the black man who states he is neither a Preacher nor has any intent on finding a pond. Tanner being a man from the South, he that life in the North is much different from that in the South and his way of approaching black people being friendly in his eyes is unacceptable. An ironic twist to this story comes from the black man, “I don’t take no crap off no wool-hat red-neck son-of-a-bitch peckerwood old basterd like you.” (O’Connor 263) O’Connor not only writes about racism happening towards black people but white people as well. This era was full of mixed feelings between the two races and O’Connor does well to incorporate both sides.
O’Connor used much of the same character base for her stories. There always seems to be a good mix of white people and black people. The way O’Connor decides to incorporate which ever group she decides one can always count on racism of a group present. Hyman says it best, “As this suggest, not only do images and symbols recur, but fixed grouping of people recur, and certain figures in these fixed groups are consistently travestied” (Hyman 30) Not only are black people constantly judged in O’Connor’s stories, but she also targets whites by using such words as, white trash and peckerwood which could be interpreted as racist toward white people. The continual battle between the groups of characters in her stories, allow almost a comical feeling present of the ignorance of just how narrow minded people where in that era.
Flannery O’Connor was considered a great author of her time. Her stories were unique and funny but at the same token disturbing. She lived through one of our nation’s most intense times of Jim Crow Laws and intergrading blacks and whites together as equals. She showed no favoritism to either race but had consistent criticizing of different characters throughout her stories. From blacks to white trash to a young girl who was a slut, there was a bit of everything in each story. Of the many themes present her battle of judgmental characters and racism intertwined in her unique stories was a great theme that makes Flannery O’Connor such a different and great writer.
Works Cited
Hewitt, Avis Donahoo, Robert. “Flannery O'Connor in the Age of Terrorism : Essays on Violence and Grace”: University of Tennessee Press. April 2010.
Hyman, Stanley Edgar. “Flannery O’Connor - American Writers 54” : University of Minnesota Pamphlets on American Writers No. 54. University of Minnesota Press. 1996.
O’Connor, Flannery. “Everything that Rises Must Converge” : Ninth Printing and Ambassador Books Ltd., Toronto. 1970.
Sykes, John D. “Flannery O'Connor, Walker Percy, and the Aesthetic of Revelation” : University of Missouri Press. Columbia, MO, USA. 2007
Yaeger, Patricia. “Dirt and Desire : Reconstructing Southern Women's Writing, 1930-1990” University of Chicago Press. July 2000.
