Introduction
Flannery O’Connor is a bright representative of the American literature of Southern Gothic. Until the age of 18, the writer lived on a farm in Milledgeville, and all her stories are literally imbued with the reality of life in the 1920s and 1940s in South America. Almost all of O’Connor’s characters go through a short life journey as a test, seeking redemption or at least enlightenment, but often finding it only in death or not even there. Flannery O’Connor was diagnosed with a severe hereditary disease, which prompted her to write two novels and thirty short works. One of the author’s popular stories is A Good Man is Hard to Find, Revelation, and Parker’s Back. Although the stories are different and describe various situations in the lives of the characters, they are still united by common themes such as faith, hopelessness, and evil.
Flannery O’Connor’s Stories
The author’s stories are imbued with a dark style of writing that was inspired by her childhood. Flannery O’Connor has her philosophy and views that are clearly reflected in her works, and they are based on life experience, irony, and religion. One of the most remarkable stories is the tale of a family heading to Florida. The peculiarity of the work is that not every character is given proper names (Kennedy and Gioia). The grandmother is trying to dissuade her son from going there, as an escaped prisoner is also heading there. The comical situations of the whole day become disastrous for the heroes. As a result, the family is faced with a fatal accident and an escaped prisoner, which leads everyone to death. Before her death, grandmother showed herself to be a self-satisfied Protestant. Irony, religion, arrogance, and hopelessness can be traced in this work.
Revelation is one of the author’s most famous works and an essential short work of American literature. This work clearly expresses the author’s position about the terrible unenviable situation of the oppressed strata of the population. This story also indicates that people have forgotten the essence of true faith. The main character thinks that it is necessary to do good deeds to get to heaven, a morally correct life. To do this, she dressed well, always preened herself, tried to help those who were poor in every possible way, and flaunted herself in the best light. But there was something wrong with her thoughts and heart, with the inner person in her. The difference between the inner and outer world conflicted with each other. For others, it was unnoticeable, but for readers familiar with her thoughts, the person appeared in all its glory.
The story called Parker’s Back describes the life situation of an unbeliever man, Obadiah Elihue Parker, and his wife, who is dedicated to saving her husband’s soul. The story tells how, after a man crash into a tree, he turns to faith and fills himself with a large tattoo of Christ on his entire back, hoping that this will please his wife. But ironically, she turns out to be a heretic who cannot recognize the existence of Christ as a man and God. She strikes her husband on the back but does not understand the suffering of her husband and the torments of the crucified Christ. The irony lies precisely in the tattoo on the back, that is, the hero probably begins to believe but does not strive to see the whole essence of religious belief in a straight line (Kennedy and Gioia). In this story, the power of one’s own arrogant opinion, faith, and misfortune can be retraced.
The stories of Flannery O’Connor are not an easy read, requiring complete immersion in the situation and understanding of all the irony generated by the strange life of the characters. It seems that they could be happy, and everything could turn out well, but their unique attitude to faith, the irony of fate, and accidents generate only negativity and lead to fatal consequences. The author, inspired by her own life experience, understanding of life, and the desire to show readers life as it is, has created unique works that will not leave anyone indifferent. The stories are realistic and cruel, without excessive moralizing, the characters are full of grotesque, the vices are colorful, and the religious motives are deep. O’Connor has an unquestionable talent for immersing readers in the growing darkness of what is happening, which appears due to the ordeals prescribed to the heroes, which they do not pass.
Conclusion
In conclusion, Flannery O’Connor portrayed the excesses of Protestant ethics, forcing her characters to sin, act terribly, and not even understand the evil created. The author’s stories are gloomy and leave a depressing impression, and sometimes it is not easy to read them, but they are so believable and scary since they are probably very similar to real life. Religiosity, death in each story, the atmosphere of hopelessness, decline, and the gradual escalation of horror are the basis of O’Connor’s stories, which makes her especially compared to other authors. The hopeless narration of almost every work brightens up the subtle psychologism of the author, sometimes unexpected and ironic. Flannery O’Connor has a special sense of violence and irony, which she used in her works to show human vices, faith, and the horror of people’s lives.
Works Cited
Kennedy, Joseph, and Dana Gioia. An Introduction to Fiction, Eleventh Edition. Pearson, 2010.
Kennedy, Joseph, and Dana Gioia. Revel: The Literature Collection. Pearson, 2016.