Stories by Flannery O'Connor

To understand Flannery O’Connor’s short stories is understand the rural South that she was familiar with in the pre-1970s. Her stories focus on aspects character in human, every-day situations all revolving around her South, dealing with race relations, Christianity, rural versus city living, parent-child relationships, etc. She brings the reader into the settings by capturing thought processes, a style I found engaging. I enjoyed reading her stories, although they illustrated a lack of hope in human nature.

Themes

Race and Class

I found the most common theme in Flannery O’Connor’s stories is race and class, looking at conflict between generations. A great example is “Everything that Rises Must Converge.” In this story, a progressive young man must ride the bus with his older mother to the YMCA because she is “afraid” of the blacks on the integrated buses. He wants to teach her a lesson, but in the end he realizes he still needs his mother, as “old-fashioned” as she is.

Race and class often mix in O’Connor’s stories. In “Revelation,” a self-satisfied judgmental woman is baffled when a young girl calls her a rude name; in the end, she (maybe) realizes the folly of her judgments.

Other stories clearly dealing with race and class also include rural versus city conflicts. Some of these stories are “The Artificial Nigger” (a father and son visit Atlanta); “The Displaced Person” (a Jewish refugee family joins the farm); “A Late Encounter With the Enemy” (Grandpa fought in the civil war); and “The Geranium” and “Judgment Day” (an old man, living in New York City with his daughter, longs to return to the South to die; these are essentially the same story, one written at the beginning and one at the end of O’Connor’s career).

Isolated, Lonely People

Some of my favorite stories were about lonely, isolated individuals seeking for a place. In “The Crop,” a lonely woman sits down to write a short story-and forgets where she is. I love this story because I can relate to this writer: she can’t figure out how to get the story from her head to paper. In “A Stroke of Good Fortune,” the woman ponders a fortune teller’s message, and the reader, following her thoughts, knows what it is. I loved how clueless she was as I followed her thought process.

While others weren’t favorites, they were also about lonely, isolated people: “You Can’t Be Any Poorer Than Dead” (14-year-old must bury his grandfather); “Good Country People” (a lonely girl with a wooden leg finally trusts someone, the good country man selling bibles); “The Life You Save May Be Your Own” (mother gets her mute daughter married to a nice, good country man); “A View of the Woods” (a lonely, selfish grandfather idolizes his granddaughter); and “The Enduring Chill” (a lonely, unsuccessful writer returns to Georgia to die).

Christianity (Good versus Evil)

Flannery O’Connor’s stories also deal with Christianity and good versus evil in general. Her view of good and evil in the face of Christianity is intriguing.

“A Good Man is Hard to Find” is probably the most familiar O’Connor story, but I really don’t like it. Grandma gets her family lost on a side road. They meet a murderer, who Grandma is sure she recognizes as a good man. I think it’s a look at how everyone has good, and yet, we’re all missing good too; we’re all condemned. I find it a bit disturbing.

In other stories, people try to save each other through religion and because of religious training. In “The River,” the boy’s caretaker, Mrs. Conin, wants to “save” him with religion. In “Parker’s Back,” Parker gets one more tattoo that he thinks his religious wife will appreciate. In “The Comforts of Home,” Thomas’s mother thinks she can save a loose woman from corruption. In “The Lame Shall Enter First,” Sheppard thinks he can redeem a criminal boy who shows more promise than his own son.

I sometimes didn’t like the violent shock at the end of each story: but that may be because I was reading all of her short stories in the same week. If you read Flannery O’Connor, read her in installments.

In the end, Flannery O’Connor certainly has a marvelous but morbid story telling ability.

Cross-posted in longer form here.

John Mutford's 3rd Short Story Pick- Flannery O'Connor's "A Good Man Is Hard To Find"

(Cross posted at The Book Mine Set)

A couple Short Story Mondays ago, Nessie commented that she hadn't read many short stories and asked if I had a top ten essentials lists. I was flattered to have been asked. She then went on to say that she had read Flannery O'Connor and I think the assumption was that someone of O'Connor's stature was a given. I was deflated. I can't be much of a short story aficionado without having read any Flannery O'Connor, right? But we've had such discussions around these parts before and I think we can all agree, it's better to just fill such gaping holes than to whine about our ever-growing TBR piles.

All this, of course, leads me to this week's story "A Good Man Is Hard To Find." I had no idea what to expect going into it, but I'm somewhat glad I didn't. If you're as in the dark about O'Connor as I was, perhaps you should go read the story now and return here afterwards.

I really appreciated O'Connor's camaraderie as a story teller. She seemed to acknowledge my expectations and delivered them, yet almost miraculously I wouldn't say it's a predictable story. People behave almost like cliches: the meddling grandmother, the bratty kids, troubled villain, etc. Foreshadowing leads exactly where it told you it would. And it would all be quite annoying if not for feeling like a parable, in which case such formalities are almost necessary.

Like all parables, there's something to consider at the end. My impression was that it was meant to be a Christian message of forgiveness. As I went through the story forgiving the grandmother for her flaws, it pales in comparison to the forgiveness implicit in the grandmother's final statement. Yes, I saw a bit of a supernatural element in the ending, but thankfully it's open to a lot of interpretation. I had to go online and see what others had to say.

Plenty. Whereas I was thankful for the multiple possibilities, the ending has been quite troublesome for many scholars and rife with debate. It turns out that even despite O'Connor's declaration that it was indeed a parable (not that different from the message I read) people still argue about it. One of those in disagreement with the author herself was Stephen C. Bandy who calls upon an adage of D.H. Lawrence to "Never trust the artist. Trust the tale." I enjoyed his article but when he concludes that "to insist at this moment of mutual revelation [referring to the grandmother's last words] that [she] is transformed into the agent of God's grace is to do serious violence to the story" I am not convinced. The bulk of Bandy's argument seems to tear down the character of the grandmother in an attempt to prove she does not provide an adequate balance to the evil of "the misfit" to allow O'Connor's intentions be taken seriously. In fact, he pushes it further by saying that the grandmother is more like the villain than O'Connor would ever admit. Bandy does seem to enjoy the story (writing off those final words as further proof of the grandmother's selfishness), but not the author's own interpretation.

Without having read O'Connor's full essay I can't say fully whether I agree with her or not. I can certainly relate to Bandy finding meaning in writing (especially poetry) that was not intended, but I don't think I'd ever be as bold as to say the author was wrong. I've always had the view that reading is far too personal for a single explanation. In this case, I don't necessarily see the grandmother as having redeemed herself spiritually. In fact I'm not convinced she was even herself at the end. I agree that she wasn't a polar opposite of the villain, but I think that was the point. As a sliding scale, O'Connor asks how far we can push our forgiveness. I think the "good man" to which the title refers is Jesus, who O'Connor suggests, forgives all. So what if I can, as a reader, forgive the trespasses of the grandmother. If I really wanted to test myself, I should try forgiving the Misfit. And did the grandmother really forgive him or was it Jesus speaking through her? This is my reading: not that she was the agent of God's grace, but the channel.

Regardless of your religious orientation, this is a great story. You may not agree with O'Connor, Bandy, or me (gasp!), but I'm sure it'll make you think.

The soundtrack:
1. A Good Man Is Hard To Find- Tom Waits
2. The Good In Everyone- Sloan
3. Shines Right Through- Great Big Sea
4. Forgive Them Father- Lauryn Hill
5. Jesus Christ Pose- Soundgarden

(If you write Short Story Monday posts, please leave a link at my blog!)