Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Theme of religion in flannery o connor works
Writing style analysis essay
Writing style analysis essay
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
What is more intriguing than human thought? Flannery O’Connor wrote about characters whose corrupt thoughts were put in the spotlight for all to see. She often used these faults to twist the plot in a direction unthought of. One of the other noticeable elements in her works is the inclusion of tremendous detail that allows the one reading to envision a scene. She wove descriptions into characters and actions that enticed the reader for more. O’Connor has used these elements of writing to create situations that show the reader the nature of humans. Flannery O’Connor has significantly influenced America and the world by reflecting her Catholic beliefs in her works without excluding a portion of her possible audience.
Flannery O’Connor was born
…show more content…
The theme of her stories is often difficult to pinpoint because she utilizes inconspicuous methods of communicating them. For example, the trees are depicted as a heavenly scene with the light from the sun shining through them. On the other hand, the winding dirt roads were most likely used to reference Hell because they are contrasted with hills that overlook a magnificent forest (Ulicne). Initially, minor details in her stories can be overlooked, but the meaning of the work can be interpreted drastically different if the reader is aware of these …show more content…
She received the Rhinehart-Iowa Fiction Award for submitting an incomplete version of Wise Blood, one of her later published novels. She was given grants from not only the National Institute of Arts and Letters, but also the Ford Foundation. Most notably, the National Book Award was given to a collection of her works ,called The Complete Stories, eight years after her death. The award is usually reserved for living authors, however, the judges thought O’Connor to be deserving. Also, in 1979, fifteen years after her death, The Habit of Being, a collection of letters that revealed certain areas of her life, was edited by Sally Fitzgerald and published to tremendous reviews. (Gordon). O’Connor undeniably touched people’s lives over a decade after her death. That effect is the sign of a successful writer and what all aspire to
McCarthy, John F. “Human Intelligence Versus Divine Truth: The Intellectual in Flannery O’Connor’s Works.” English Journal 55.9 (1966): 1143-1148. JSTOR. Web. 22 Nov. 2011.
A brilliant storyteller during the mid-twentieth century, Flannery O'Connor wrote intriguing tales of morality, ethics and religion. A Southern writer, she wrote in the Southern Gothic style, cataloging thirty-two short stories; the most well known being “A Good Man is Hard to Find.”
Scott, Nathan A., Jr. "Flannery O'Connor's Testimony." The Added Dimension: The Art and Mind of Flannery O'Connor. Ed. Melvin J. Friedman and Lewis A. Lawson. New York: Fordham UP, 1966. 138-56.
Flannery O’Connor believed in the power of religion to give new purpose to life. She saw the fall of the old world, felt the force and presence of God, and her allegorical fictions often portray characters who discover themselves transforming to the Catholic mind. Though her literature does not preach, she uses subtle, thematic undertones and it is apparent that as her characters struggle through violence and pain, divine grace is thrown at them. In her story “Revelation,” the protagonist, Mrs. Turpin, acts sanctimoniously, but ironically the virtue that gives her eminence is what brings about her downfall. Mrs. Turpin’s veneer of so called good behavior fails to fill the void that would bring her to heaven. Grace hits her with force and their illusions, causing a traumatic collapse exposing the emptiness of her philosophy. As Flannery O’Connor said, “In Good Fiction, certain of the details will tend to accumulate meaning from the action of the story itself, and when this happens they become symbolic in the way they work.” (487). The significance is not in the plot or the actual events, but rather the meaning is between the lines.
Flannery O’Connor, undoubtedly one of the most well-read authors of the early 20th Century, had many strong themes deeply embedded within all her writings. Two of her most prominent and poignant themes were Christianity and racism. By analyzing, “A Good Man is Hard to Find” and “Everything that Rises Must Converge,” these two themes jump out at the reader. Growing up in the mid-1920’s in Georgia was a huge influence on O’Connor. Less than a decade before her birth, Georgia was much different than it was at her birth. Slaves labored tirelessly on their master’s plantations and were indeed a facet of everyday life. However, as the Civil War ended and Reconstruction began, slaves were not easily assimilated into Southern culture. Thus, O’Connor grew up in a highly racist area that mourned the fact that slaves were now to be treated as “equals.” In her everyday life in Georgia, O’Connor encountered countless citizens who were not shy in expressing their discontent toward the black race. This indeed was a guiding influence and inspiration in her fiction writing. The other guiding influence in her life that became a major theme in her writing was religion. Flannery O'Connor was born in Savannah, Georgia, the only child of a Catholic family. The region was part of the 'Christ-haunted' Bible belt of the Southern States. The spiritual heritage of the region profoundly shaped O'Connor's writing as described in her essay "The Catholic Novelist in the Protestant South" (1969). Many of her 32 short stories are inundated with Christ-like allusions and other references to her faith.
Flannery O'Connor once said “All my stories are about the action of grace on a character who is not very willing to support it, but most people think of these stories as hard, hopeless and brutal.” But to many readers this may sound very ironic. This perspective may be easily picked up by readers seeing how she is very unsympathic towards the characters; she made all her characters who eventually are led to their own down fall very proud people; but yet places them in a very physiologically vulnerable position and claiming that they are ungrateful for the grace around them. Her stories also surrounds strongly around a shredding of falsehood in a form of accepting, and embracing defeat, or humility; but she also gives no chance of a redemption for the by ending most of the stories with the characters cornered into a state of complete breakdown. The stories also contain a many heavily enforced Christian ideology and morals, and with the brutality she enforces these moralise it no surprise that reader may see her as a twisted and aggressive bible basher.
A story without style is like a man without personality: useless and boring. However, Flannery O’Connor incorporates various different styles in her narratives. Dark humor, irony, and symbolism are perhaps the utmost powerful and common styles in her writing. From “Revelation” and “Good Country People” to “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” all of O’Connor’s stories consist of different styles in writing.
Webster's online dictionary defines humor as "a quality that appeals to a sense of the ludicrous (laughable and/or ridiculous) or incongruous." Incongruity is the very essence of irony. More specifically, irony is "incongruity between the actual result of a sequence of events and the expected result." Flannery O'Connor's works are masterpieces in the art of literary irony, the laughable and ridiculous. The incongruous situations, ridiculous characters, and feelings of superiority that O'Connor creates make up her shocking and extremely effective, if not disturbing, humor. I say "disturbing" because O'Connor's humor, along with humor in general, most often contains the tragic. O'Connor has been quoted as saying, "The comic and the terrible [...] may be opposite sides of the same coin" (Farley 17). Throughout her works, specifically "Good Country People," O'Connor uses her humor to humble and expose the biases of the overly intellectual and spiritually bankrupt.
The theme of redemption and grace is apparent in many of Flannery O’Connor’s short stories. God must overpower the character, sometimes causing suffering, and strike him with mercy so that the character can receive grace. The character has to recognize the evil in themselves and then they can be shocked into epiphanies that reveal harsh realities.
Bleikstan, Andre. “The Heresy of Flannery O’Connor”. Critical Essays on Flannery O’Connor. Ed. Melvin J. Friedman and Beverly Lyon Clark. Boston: G. K. Hall & Co., 1985.
Raiger, Michael. “’’Large and Startling Figures’: The Grotesque and the Sublime in the Short Stories of Flannery O’Connor.’” Seeing into the Life of Things: Essays on Literature and Religious Experience (1998): 242-70. Rpt. in Short Story Criticism. Ed. Janet Witalec.
Flannery O'Connor was an author that was known for her controversial writing. O' Connor was also known for frequently writing about grace, redemption, and salvation. Each one of her stories was full of twists and turns. Each turn of the page kept readers wanting more. So there was no surprise that O'Connor's short stories Revelation, Parker's Back, and A Good Man is Hard to Find, were full of imagery and complex writing. Once dissected, it was evident that all three of the stories were similar in so many ways. Although the stories are similar, they also differ in numerous ways.
In reality, her writing is filled with meaning and symbolism, hidden in plain sight beneath a seamless narrative style that breathes not a word of agenda, of dogma, or of personal belief. In this way, her writing is intrinsically esoteric, in that it contains knowledge that is hidden to all but those who have been instructed as to how and where to look for it, i.e. the initiated. Flannery O'Connor is a Christian writer, and her work is message-oriented, yet she is far too brilliant a stylist to tip her hand; like all good writers, crass didacticism is abhorrent to her. Nevertheless, she achieves what no Christian writer has ever achieved: a type of writing that stands up on both literary and the religious grounds, and succeeds in doing justice to both.
Whitt, Margaret. Understanding Flannery O’Connor. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1995. 47-48, 78. Print.
...sque, and in Flannery O’Connor’s artistic makeup there is not the slightest trace of sentimentally” (qtd. in Bloom 19). Flannery O’Connor’s style of writing challenges the reader to examine her work and grasp the meaning of her usage of symbols and imagery. Edward Kessler wrote about Flannery O’Connor’s writing style stating that “O’Connor’s writing does not represent the physical world but serves as her means of apprehending and understanding a power activating that world” (55). In order to fully understand her work one must research O’Connor and her background to be able to recognize her allegories throughout her stories. Her usage of religious symbols can best be studied by looking into her religious Catholic upbringing. Formalist criticism exists in “A Good Man is Hard to Find” through Flannery O’Connor’s use of plot, characterization, setting, and symbolism.