Veronica Cordova Cordova 1

9/24/10

6th Period AP Lit

Flannery O'Connor's Life and Literature

No one can go into life and not gain intelligence and personality. Something will always be able

to shape the way someone thinks, acts or feels. Such as, Hitler persuading most Germans to enforce the

efforts of the Holocaust; the continuous Submarine Warfare that inclined the Americans to enter World

War II; and the Great Awakening preachers who brought beliefs to many U.S. Citizens. In this same

aspect, as literary figures or any writer grows, his/her surroundings, role models, and experiences will

determine what and how he/she may write. Therefore, Flannery O'Connor's gruesome yet enlightening

literature can be attributed to her religion, environment, studies, and companions, which are all key

components that are noticeable in her writing.

O’Connor's religion is the most prominent factor because many of her works deal with Christian

topics. This includes the novel Wise Blood and short story “A Good Man is Hard to Find”, which puts

church leaders and believers in dramatic, almost impossible situations and reveals the sinner in all

people(Hutchinson). It is easy to point out O’Connor's spiritual heritage was caused by her family.

They raised her as a Catholic and her hometown was in the main strip of the early Bible Belt(Huff).

However, her readers are not the only one's who realize this. Most writers have a certain approach to

literature but do not recognize it. On the other hand, O’Connor actually wrote an essay entitled “The

Catholic Novelist in the Protestant South”, to appreciate and describe how her faith shaped her as a

writer. People may mistake O’Connor to be Atheist, due to her violent scenarios and constant

reflections of religion, but she is very much Catholic (Willimon). She poses questions to get brains into

a thoughtful process, to test morality and ethics, to express that nobody is perfectly stainless from sins,

and perhaps, to subtly say that doubting can be alright and acceptable. Not only her parents influenced

her, but also, thinkers and friends during her career. She took interest in reading works from special
writers like Chardin, Santayana, and Arentt, however the most influential close friends she had were

Robert and Sally Fitzgerald, who were also literary Roman Catholics (Samway). It is important to note

that who someone spends time with may affect how he/she will think or help him/her keep on a certain

path of thoughts. Robert was this path. He was finally appointed as O'Connor's literary executor. Point

blank, the people of importance in O'Connor's life contributed to her writing style by enforcing

literature and religion.

“Anything that comes out of the South is going to be called grotesque by the Northern reader,

unless it is grotesque, in which case it is going to be called realistic”(Flannery O'Connor). Like

Samway discusses, O'Connor was from the south and although her career was ongoing during the mid

40's and 50's, she did not write about the normal, expected Southern topics. Instead, she became a

Southern Gothic writer. Tennessee Williams described Southern Gothic as a style of writing that

incorporates “an intuition, of an underlying dreadfulness in modern society.” This is especially relevant

and significant in O'Connor's works. She used extremely flawed characters in order to highlight the

negatives of the South and its culture. For example, in “A Good Man is Hard to Find”, the

grandmother's and Misfit's negative qualities would be their personalities, racism, and constant battle

between pushing Christianity on others and the refusal of conversion, respectably. These characteristics

do not only describe the individuals in the story, but represent the South as a whole. Most of these

topics would not be discussed in Northern Literature because the North has different history, people,

and ways of life. Most people could just drive through a city in the North and a town in the South and

point out differences, and it is much easier to do so when you are living in one place and visit another.

Therefore, it is clear that O'Connor was affected by her environment and her work can easily be

identified as Southern Gothic.

O'Connor was a determined, studious, young woman, so her studies affected her writing. While

she was attending Georgia State College for Women, she followed her love for writing by editing the

college magazine. However, her degree probably changed her the most. She majored in Social Sciences
which is a “field that explores and analyzes aspects of human society”, and this is exactly what

O'Connor seems to base her writing off of. Her stories explain life in the South and the humans who

live there. She then went to the University of Iowa where she received her master of Fine Arts in

Literature. During her stay in Iowa, she participated in writers workshops led by the well-known Paul

Engle(Biography Base). O'Connor found outlets to focus on her writing, received various degrees, and

took advantage of every opportunity to learn. There is no doubt that she became a better writer after

attending her Universities.

Only experience and age can mold somebody into an amazing, artistic writer. Flannery

O'Connor learned by looking around at her environment, succeeding in further education, and finding

acquaintances with similar writing styles. It seems as if she took all her life lessons, took them into

account, and embedded them into her writing. Her religion is evident when viewing stories like “A

Good Man is Hard to Find”, chapters of Wise Blood, and “Revelation”, whose title is one found in the

Bible. Her surroundings are used for a Southern Gothic style and it is apparent with characters like

Mrs. Turpin, who judges and classes everyone; Mary Grace, who randomly lunges a book at Mrs.

Turpin's eye; the “grandmother”, who quickly doubts religion when desperate to save her life; and the

Misfit, who kills a whole innocent family because of injustice. O'Connor's education is apparent due to

the intelligent uses of literary devices, such as irony by death or injury; and interesting, thoughtful

morals that are wisely incorporated in her text, such as questions of faith. One who lives will be

pressured into alteration, but one can choose which alterations to neglect and which ones to accept.
 Works Cited

Huff, Peter A. "The challenge of fundamentalism for interreligious dialogue." Cross

Currents 1/2(2000):94. eLibrary. Web. 19 Sep. 2010.

"O'Connor, (Mary) Flannery (1925-1964)." Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia. 08 Sep.

2005. eLibrary. Web. 20 Sep. 2010.

"Quote by Flannery O'Connor.” Goodreads. 2010. Web. 19 Sep. 2010

Samway, Patrick. "SOUTHERN EXPRESSIONS." America. 30 Mar. 2009: 30. eLibrary. Web. 19 Sep.

2010.

Willimon, William H. "Flannery: A Life of Flannery O'Connor." Christian Century. 05 May. 2009:

47. eLibrary. Web. 19 Sep. 2010.

“William, Tennessee.” New World Encyclopedia. 2 April 2008. Web. 19 Sep. 2010

“Flannery O'Connor Biography.” Biography Base. 9 October 2007. Web. 20 Sep. 2010