Title Analysis of Everything that Rises Must Converge By Flannery O'Connor

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Literally converge means "to tend toward or approach an intersecting point." But I believe that word's meaning especially in literature changes, or even contains two different meanings. So in the story "Everything that Rises Must Converge" by Flannery O 'Connor converge affects the title but has different meaning. The title means that the past is nothing and the present is more important. Not only that, but everything will return as God made as the time goes by. First of all, the story was written during the time when slaves were emancipated and all of the blacks fought for their own rights and freedom. So the social flow and especially the rights of both races turned out to be "Normal"and "Equal" now. However the author shows that the reaction of discrimination still exists inside the white people and through the actions of Julian's mother. Julian's mother keeps talking about Julian's grandfather who had a lot of slaves and a humongous fortune. However, this was a very dangerous thought at that time of the story, because the black had achieved equality an they were all thinking about equality. The thought led Julian's mother to get hit by a black woman who had the same hat as that of Julain's mother. Her actions of superiority and her action of trying to give the black woman's son a penny provoked the black woman to slap Julian's mother is the face, since in olden days many whites used to give all the young blacks a penny, and reminded the black woman of discrimination. The author, in contrast, also tries to show the equality of two races through Julian himself and his thoughts. When Julian sees his mother wearing the same hat as one of the black woman, he says that the black woman looks better in the hat. Not only that, he tries to engage in conversation with a black man to show the black's wise. In this way, Julian tries to teach his mother that now it is not time for difference but equality, and her thoughts about those blacks should be changed to fit in with the society. Not only that, but the author also shows equality with the backgrounds of the story. Julian graduated from university and his mother is an heir of rich family, yet he is still to-be-a writer, he is poor and has no job at the moment and is desperately in need of money because of his mother's illness.

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