Everything That Rises Must Converge Character Analysis

Everything That Rises Must Converge by Flannery O’Connor exposition starts with main characters Julian and his mother preparing to leave the house for her fitness class at the Y. The reader learns that the mother must lose 20 pounds in order to help her blood pressure issues (O'Connor 495). The author notes that the buses have been integrated because the mother no longer rides the bus alone due to this, which lets the reader know that the time period is set after 1956. Julian is a college graduate who is having a difficult time making money so he lives with his mother. He wants to write for a living, but is selling typewriters until he can pursue this passion, though he knows that it will never happen (O'Connor 500). The first rising action point is when the mother is determining whether or not to wear a hat or to return it to the store. Julian does not snap at his mother, but he rolls his eyes before telling his mother to put it on so they can leave. He lets the reader know, but not his mother, that he thinks the hat is hideous (O'Connor 496). This is where he first starts to ridicule his mother by thinking, “Everything that gave her pleasure was small and depressed him,” (O'Connor 496). This begins the rising action by letting the readers know that Julian is frustrated with his

The mother says that she can be “gracious” to anybody, even the Black people in her fitness class, because she knows who she is (O'Connor 497). Julian gets angry with this because he says that, “Knowing who you are are is good for one generation only. You haven’t the foggiest idea where you stand now or who you are now,” (O'Connor 497). From here, the mother shows that she knows who she is by telling him about his grandparents and his great grandfather. After this they move on to a different subject. This is the first time that Julian verbally shows his irritation with his