Flannery O’Connor: Working On A Mission
...d and Rinehart let her go with presumably no regrets. Harcourt Brace offered her a contract when they realized she was a free writer (Cheaney 255). About that time, Elizabeth McKee became her agent and she moved into the home of Sally and Robert F. Fitzgerald (Cheaney 255). The symbolism used in O’Connor’s writings clearly reflects her Roman Catholic upbringing. O’Connor always used laughter and her religious beliefs to correct the flaws of normal human lives (Boren 115). Almost all of her writings are told from the 3rd person perspective. Using this tone in her writing helped O’Connor to separate the narration and the actions taking place. Also, being the narrator in the story gives her an omniscient sense, an all-knowing feeling of what the character is thinking (Boren 115). Her works were based on three basic truths: “The Fall, The Redemption, and The Judgment” (May 401). In 1952, her first novel, Wise Blood, was published. O’Connor believed Wise Blood was a “silly idiom” for the words “original sin” (May 401-404). Wise Blood centers on Hazel Motes, a preacher, who attempts to set up the first “Church Without Christ” (O’Donnell 799). O’Connor’s use of con-artists and criminals show the truly desperate situation in which Hazel Motes is in, but also shows that the only way he can get out of his predicament is through God. In the novel Wise Blood, “man cannot justify himself or find salvation in the modern saviors” such as greed, lust, or indulgences (Drake 183). Only through the wonderful beauty of God will the unrighteous become saved. Her next work was a collection of short stories, entitled A Good Man is Hard to Find. The morbid humor and irony shows strongly in this compilation of short stories (Cash 94). This story portrays a journey of discovery by a grandmother, her son, and her daughter-in-law. They encounter “The Misfit” and other criminals and eventually the family gets killed (Liukkonen 1). “The Misfit” and his two sidekicks represent Christ-like characters gone terribly wrong. Once again, O’Connor chooses to show the destructive road instead of focusing on the positive effects. Her morbid humor and irony shows that God a stern but patient teacher. . Towards the end of her life O’Connor’s works get more grotesque. According to the author herself, “Grotesque with good reason, I believe. To the hard of hearing, you shout, and for the almost blind, you draw large and startling pictures” (May 402). A good example is The Violent Bear It Away, written in 1960. It features Francis Marion Tarwater who has been commanded by his Uncle Mason to grow up and be a prophet. However, when his uncle dies, Tarwater rejects the notion and suffers because of it. Finally, he receives a vision and accepts what has been destined for him. O’Connor has finally chosen to display the wonderful power of God, but only after Tarwater is physically and emotionally tortured. Her second collection of short stories was Everything That Rises Must Converge, including “A View of the Woods,” “Greenleaf,” and the story the book was titled for, “Everything That Rises Must Converge,” which is set in the 1960’s in the integrated south. This story revolves around Julian, an unemployed white man who still lives with his mother (Ollman 6). Its deeper theme is truly thoughtful as the whites are set against the blacks, yet the blacks have the same ill feelings for the good common “white folk.” Julian sees subtle changes in the attitudes towards the colored-race, and knows that this is the domino-effect for greater things to come. In Mystery and Manners, written in 1969, O’Connor writes about what inspires her to imagine the plots found in her works. She tries to portray in each story “an action that is totally unexpected, yet totally believable (Clark 1).” O’Connor uses tortured images and uncharacteristic violence to explore into the depths of Christianity. Through violence, a glimpse of the sane world can be seen, yet is just out of reach. Finally, in Flannery O’Connor’s The Complete Stories were compiled in 1972 and they included all of her short stories published, the two novels, and the essays by O’Connor herself, totaling thirty-one works in all (Cash 94). O’Connor’s physical health greatly affected her writings. O’Connor was diagnosed with disseminated lupus in 1950 (Hyman 338). Sickness seemed to surround O’Connor, which is no wonder why she included so much illness in her stories. She pulled through the first bout of the disease with the help of Dr. Arthur Merrill. She had to take steroids which kept the lupus at bay but made her bones weaker, forcing her to use crutches (Cheaney 255). The lupus seemed to be in check when O’Connor had an abdominal tumor removed in 1960, but it proved to be benign (Liukkonen 1). Soon, the lupu...