“Everything That Rises Must Converge” by Flannery O’Connor is about an older woman who throughout her life has put down people of color. Flannery O’Connor’s story took place in the time period of Civil Rights movement. This story is about the dynamics between Julian, a son who was a progressive thinker and Mrs. Chestney, the mother who was raised in in the old south during the slave era. Mrs. Chestney ended up dying because of her inability to adapt. How Mrs. Chestney was raised contributed with her death. Mrs. Chestney states the following “Your great-grand-father had a plantation and two hundred slaves” (O’Connor 2).This clearly shows that the mother was raised by people who looked down at the black people and that they taught her that it was acceptable for her to treat them in a bad way because they deserved to be slaves. She grew up observing how white people treated African Americans and they contributed to the country only by being slaves, the mother states “They were better off when they were… It’s ridiculous. It’s simply not realistic. They should rise, yes, but on their own side of the fence.”(O’Connor 2). When she said this she didn’t …show more content…
Chestney still thought that white people were better than people of color. The mother says the following “The world is a mess everywhere…I don’t know how we’ve let it get in this fix” (O’Connor 4), Mrs. Chestney also says “it’s a wonder we can enjoy anything. I tell you, the bottom rail is on the top” (O’Connor 2). She thinks that the world is in such a bad place because the African Americans can do whatever and can go wherever the whites can. The mother states the following “Now you see why I won’t ride on these buses by myself” (O’Connor 5). The mother says this after she saw a black woman get on the bus, and told this to Julian, her son that just got out of college; she said this with the intention on wanting her son to think that black people are criminals, She consider black people to be mean and not