O'Connor Paper Case

English Lit

3/12/12

Flannery O’Connor’s Potential Redemption

“Being short does not mean being slight. A short story should be long in depth and should give us an experience of meaning” (O’Connor 1648). This quote from “Writing Short Stories” shows Flannery O’Connor’s view on how short stories should be written. She focuses on the meaning behind the text for the reader to make the connections themselves in their interpretation of the story. The writer needs to be able to discover something from their stories or most likely the readers will not. Flannery O’Connor is a bazar writer, always trying to illustrate her Christian faith into her stories. O’Connor offers a potential redemption to the characters in all her stories, only if they choose to accept it. She reminds us there is a higher power, but the redeemer is never who the reader expects. She uses these techniques in the stories: “A Good Man is Hard to Find”, “Everything that Rises Must Converge”, and “Good Country People”.

“Everything that Rises Must Converge” takes place in the South during the Civil Rights Act. The main characters are Julian and his mother. Julian is a year out of college and is still dependent on his mother. His mother only depends on him for riding the bus because they are integrated and she won’t ride alone. She has high blood pressure and needs to lose weight so she takes the bus to the reducing class at the Y. Both Julian and his mother are racist in different ways. Julian is a closet racist using black people only to achieve his own goals. His mother is a classic racist believing in equality but separation. “It’s ridiculous. It’s simply not realistic. They should rise, yes, but on their own side of the fence” (O’Connor 1018). Julian is disrespectful to his mother and is constantly trying to prove her wrong. He envisions his goals using black people in different ways to upset his mother while sitting on the bus. During the ride they encounter a large black woman and her son Carver. Julian’s mother thinks the young boy is cute and tries to play with him. The boy’s mother isn’t amused and gets angrier as the bus ride continues. Carver and his mother get off at the same stop as Julian and his mother. Julian’s mother, set in her ways, offers Carver a penny as she does with all children. This is the final straw for the black mother and she smacks Julian’s mother to the ground. At first Julian pursues in telling her how she got what she deserved, but then realizes she is seriously injured and has had a stroke. O’Connor ends the story with Julian running for help only postponing his entry into the world of guilt and sorrow. The black mother is the redeemer of the story by taking Julian’s mom out of the picture freeing him of his racism and letting him integrate.

“Good Country People”