God's Unconditional Grace

God has a plan for all of his children which involves grace. Grace is forgiveness and the only real grace comes from God. God’s grace is offered to everyone no matter what his or her religion, or lack thereof. He reveals it when he is ready and in different ways. The real obstacle is whether or not the offered grace is realized and accepted. In “The River” by Flannery O’Connor a clueless child, Harry, is offered grace. He is clueless to what is going on, but he knows he is not content in the life he lives now. In addition, in “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” O’Connor challenges the self-centered Grandmother, and the socially unworthy Misfit to find and accept grace. God grants all of his children the opportunity to obtain grace whether they lack religion, are self-centered, or are socially unworthy. Harry doesn’t know about God or Jesus yet he is still offered grace. The Grandmother receives grace despite her self-centeredness. The socially unworthy Misfit is offered grace despite being a convicted criminal but he rejects it.

In “The River” Harry (Bevel) Ashfield is a child that lacks religious and spiritual guidance from his immoral parents and is treated as an after-thought at best. He “is at the mercy of his rotten parents who treat him as nothing more than an inconvenience” (Sparrow 1). In his home everything is a joke and he is raised as if nothing matters (Sparrow 1). Although Harry is not materially deprived, he is spiritually malnourished. He does not know who God or Jesus is. In his home the words Jesus Christ or God are used in vain by his parents when they are frustrated or angered in some way (Chapman 2). He has never been taught about religion and lacks the appreciation and admiration that is needed for ...

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... And Other Stories.” Masterplots, Fourth Edition (2010): 1-2. Literary Reference Center. Web. 21 Feb. 2014.

O’Connor, Flannery. “A Good Man Is Hard to Find.” The Complete Stories. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1971. 117-133. Print.

O’Connor, Flannery. “The River.” The Complete Stories. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1971. 157-174. Print.

Ochshorn, Kathleen G. “A Cloak of Grace: Contradictions in ‘A Good Man Is Hard to Find’.” Studies in American Fiction 18.1 (Spring 1990): 113-117. Rpt. in Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism. Ed. Janet Witalec. Vol. 132. Detroit: Gale, 2003. Literature Resource Center. Web. 8 Feb. 2014.

Sparrow, Stephen. "Getting Somewhere: Baptism and the Sense of Place in Flannery O'Connor's ‘The River’.” Comforts of Home: The Flannery O’Connor Repository. MediaSpecialist.org, 4 Mar. 2004. Web. 8 Feb. 2014.