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Grotesque Theme In Flannery O Connor's Literary Work

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Flannery O’Connor’s literary work is heavily debated due to its irregular nature. Most short stories follow a typical plotline in which there is a happy ending, while Flanery O’Connor’s work defies this by using an untraditional ending. “She did not wear rose-colored glasses, and her eye seized upon the depraved, the vulgar, and the grotesque.”(Jordan 48) The topics and themes that she tackles such as race, narcissism, and religion are typically omitted from other writings due to their controversial nature. She also does not focus on the positive or good features of these themes and uses violence to depict them. She tackles issues from a different perspective that leads the reader to think deeper. “It makes us wince even while we laugh,” (Jordan …show more content…

Common recurring themes are race, region, narcissism, and grotesque nature. She typically uses multiple themes together to complement each other. The grotesque theme draws most readers to O’Connor because it makes her so unique as a writer. Raegal states that she uses this grotesque factor of her work to teach others to be “watchful for the intervention of grace in the lives of her characters,”(Ragen 387). She uses the grotesque to force the reader to dig deeper into the surface level of the story. Her unique view on religion is a result of the grotesque intertwining with spirituality. She discusses the unfavorable traits of Christianity, which include “judgment, as well as mercy, and the fear, as well as the love, of the Lord.”(Ragen 393) However she still demonstrates her own christian beliefs. She showed the traditional Christian figure as the ideal character and the atheist as the grotesque. Another recurring theme in O'Connor's stories is narcissism or arrogance, which is demonstrated through her characters and their personalities. This is shown through the grotesque type of character that is simply only concerned with themselves and believes that they are above everyone else. O’Connor however incorporated this idea of narcissism into Christianity. “Christianity is necessary for psychological health: the nonbeliever is necessarily narcissistic”(Scheurich and Mullen 548) This implies that Christianity is better and the ideal in her

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Summary Of Good Country People And Revelation By Flannery O Connor

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Flannery O’Connor uses the literary device of the epiphany in many of her short stories. The epiphany, typically used at the conclusion of the short story, highlights the redemptive possibilities for characters that have become engulfed by the increasing secular world. That being said, the chance for redemption is not a smooth and carefree process. Several of O’Connor’s short stories contain a protagonist that experiences an epiphany that transforms them, only then to suffer from some act of violence that solidifies their move towards Christianity. In Good Country People and Revelation, the development of the protagonists and their eventual epiphanies reveal the fullest implications of the stories’ themes.

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Summary: The Church Of Flannery O Connor

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How Does Flannery O Connor Use Foreshadowing

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Annotated Bibliography On Revelation By Flannery O Connor

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Brinkmeyer is an English professor at the University of South Carolina. He has written two books “Remapping Southern Literature: Contemporary Southern Writers and the West, Katherine Anne Porter's Artistic Development”. The article was written in 1986, the article closely relates to the Catholicism upbringing of O’Connor and how she was influenced to write on divine grace and how each character could possibly be saved or turned to love God. Brinkmeyer states “O'Connor shows no such reticence in most of her fiction, and in this lack of timidity she resembles many evangelical preachers” (Brinkmeyer). Mrs. Turpin shouted out racist things and thought of herself to be above all.

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Humans, during their lifespan, search for meaning in life. Flannery O’Connor writes a story about a man called Mr. Shiftlet. Mr. Shiftlet ends up on a farm and works for a strange woman called Old Lucynell. As Shiftlet works on Old Lucynell’s farm he and old Lucynell agree he will marry Old Lucynell’s deaf daughter who is referred to as Young Lucynell. Shiftlet eventually marries Young Lucynell only to leave her at the Hotspot.

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We even see this theme again in Good Country People. Hulga’s pessimistic view of the world is central to the story, allowing her to quickly judge the salesman for what he truly is when he pulls a flask out from inside the bible. This reoccurring theme, concerning our background and the way we judge people, must have been very important to O’Connor. Skillfully, O’Connor knits the theme into both short stories, miraculously basing the entire plot and characters around this central

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Use Of Tone In Flannery O Connor's Good Country People

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Flannery O’Connor’s short story, “Revelation,” explores the harsh epiphany of a southern woman named Ruby Turpin. It seems appropriate that O’Connor created a story that was centered around a life-changing realization given the fact that O’Connor’s life stopped abruptly due to lupus shortly before she published “Revelation.” Nevertheless, her unfortunate condition did not stop O’Connor’s ability to employ rhetorics in the story which significantly supports the theme of judgement, religion, and racism. O’Connor’s exceptional capability to appeal to audience makes “Revelation” a compelling yet realistic story to read.

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O’Connor proudly admits to being a devout Catholic and having a “modern” conscience that causes her to struggle with “contemporary” issues (396). Even to this day, “Revelation” could be considered a controversial story, which means O’Connor must not have cared about being popular, nor to conform and be like everyone else. Josephine Hendin spoke to a woman who witnessed O’Connor at a wedding shower. According to the witness, O’Connor was standing apart from the other women and frowning. Hendin says, “Neither the devil nor her mother could make her say yes to this fiercely gracious female society, but Flannery O’Connor could not say no even in a whisper” (398).

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