Flannery O’Connor: The Southern Catholic

To many critics, Flannery O’Connor was a“very devout catholic, [of the] (thirteenth century, [O’Connor described] herself),” suggests Mark Bosco a Jesuit priest, professor of Theology and English studies at Loyola University Chicago (qtd in Bosco 41). Along with being a native Georgian, O’Connor experienced life, albeit short lived, during an era of racial conflict. Although, she considered herself from another century, she was acutely aware of her twentieth century southern world, and furthermore she expressed it through her short stories. As Robert Drake a writer and Prof. at the University of Texas explains “[she wrote of what she] knew [to be] at her own doorstep” (Drake, “Apocalyptic Perception” 32), meaning that her strong religious values, southern roots and the societal issues of her times influences her writing. The aspects of O’Connor’s life that are prevalently revealed as influences, are her strong religious values, southern roots and societal issues which are portrayed, in “Good Country People” and “Everything That Rises Must Converge,” through her characters.

One aspect of O’Connor’s life that is revealed as an influence, in writing the characters, in both short stories, is her strong religious values. As Drake points out, “she was catholic in the oldest and truest sense of the word… [And was] faithful” to her Christian principles, which was evident in the redemption of the protagonists (Drake 32). For example in “Good Country People,” the point of redemption comes for Joy when she realizes that instead of her seducing Manly, as she had planned, he has made her suffer by stealing her wood leg, mocking her intelligence, then leaving her helpless in a barn. Joy thought herself to be intellectually superior to Manly,...

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