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Flannery O’Connor

Flannery O’Connor. A Search for Good and Evil in the South. Growing Up. Born in Savannah, Georgia The only child of a Catholic family.

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Flannery O’Connor

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  1. FlanneryO’Connor A SearchforGood and Evil in the South

  2. Growing Up 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 shaped profoundly O'Connor's writing as described in her essay “The Catholic Novelist in the Protestant South.”

  3. Biography Afflicted with Lupus, a crippling disease which killed her father A devout Roman Catholic all of her life Writings reflect the struggle between good and evil

  4. Catholicism/ Good Vs. Evil O'Connor, who took her Catholicism as seriously as she did her writing, called them stories about original sin. She described her work in general as being about the action of grace in the world, about those moments in which grace, usually in the form of violence, descends on her comically complacent characters, sometimes opening their eyes to an appalling realization, sometimes killing them.

  5. Violence and Religion? Many readers find O'Connor's identification with a violent and disruptive force unacceptable and even more shocking than the stories themselves. O'Connor, however, felt that a violent shock was necessary to bring both her characters and her modern secular audience to an awareness of the powerful reality of the realm of good and evil.

  6. When asked about the violent and disturbing images in her stories… • O’Connor stated: “To the hard of hearing you shout and for the almost blind you draw large and startling figures.”

  7. O’Connor Uses Stock Characters • They possess some cringe-inducing qualities, typically bigotry or self-righteousness, but with enough good traits that the reader empathizes with them. • Deeply flawed characters, often disturbing to read about • Highlight the unpleasant aspects of Southern culture without openly moralizing

  8. Grotesques Definition: "irregular, extravagant or fantastic in form“ A grotesque character may possess an exaggerated personality trait or characteristic for the purpose of eliciting both empathy and disgust in the reader In her fiction, Flannery O'Connor employed two types of grotesques: "physical grotesques" or "secular grotesques." Physical grotesques possess a deformed body in order to indicate some kind of spiritual deformity. Secular grotesques, on the other hand, are those who have for one reason or another rejected God's will and seek to destroy the soul in an attempt to save the body

  9. O’Connor’s Two Types of Grotesques 1. "physical grotesques”: These people possess a deformed body in order to indicate some kind of spiritual deformity. 2. "secular grotesques”: Those who have for one reason or another rejected God's will and seek to destroy the soul in an attempt to save the body

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