Parker’s Redemption

Parker’s Redemption

Flannery O’Connor’s story “Parker’s Back” introduces us to a man who feels incomplete and is seeking to fill the empty space in his soul. He attempts to do so the only way he knows how, by getting tattoos. He continues this until “the front of [his body is] almost completely covered…” (514). In fact, Parker even considers getting a religious tattoo to appease his over-zealously religious wife Sarah Ruth. A brush with death that is literally a “burning bush” experience drives him to mark the change in his life by getting that tattoo. He races to the tattoo parlor and demands to see the religious tattoos. He chooses a Byzantine Christ. In this story, Flannery O’Connor tries to show that although Parker’s attempts to quiet his unease provide temporary satisfaction (his tattoos and marrying Sarah Ruth), what Parker is really longing for is a relationship with God, a desire echoed in his choice of tattoo.

Parker’s disquiet is awakened at the age of fourteen upon seeing a tattooed man at the fair. He is “filled with emotion, lifted up as some people are when the flag passes…. Until he saw the man at the fair, it did not enter his head that there was anything out of the ordinary about the fact that he existed” (513). Parker attempts to deny that his existence is, in fact, extraordinary. He was a boy who was “heavy and earnest, as ordinary as a loaf of bread” (513). He refuses to own up to the fullness of his identity by refusing to go by his full name, “Obadiah Elihue,” to the point of “narrowly [missing] killing the man who used it” (517). He attempts to cure this “peculiar unease” (513) with himself by getting tattoos. This appeases that unrest, but not for long: “Parker would be satisfied with each tattoo abo...

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...fering. There are many such instances throughout the story: in the physical pain of getting tattoos, in being laughed at by his friends, and in being rejected and beaten by Sarah Ruth. He stands up for what he believes in and pays the price for it. It is my opinion that this is what the story means to teach us. Though it is not always easy, standing up for what we believe in is the path to fulfillment.

Works Cited

O’Connor, Flannery. “Parker’s Back.” The Complete Stories. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1971. 510-30.

“The Passions of Christ: A Journey Through Byzantine Art.” Kypros-Net: “The World of Cyprus”. 18 Oct. 2004 .

“Who Are Byzantine Catholics?” Byzantine Catholic Church in America. Byzantine Catholic Church in America.18 Oct. 2004 .