Flannery O'Connor

L.A. Heath
English 6923: Working-Class Literature
Fall 2003

Biography of Author

Mary Flannery O'Connor was born in Savannah, Georgia in 1925 to an influential Catholic family. She lived there until her early teens when her family moved to Milledgeville, a farming town in Georgia. Her father, Edward Francis O'Connor, died from complications of lupus three years afterthe move. She attended and then graduated from Georgia State College in 1945. That same year she enrolled in the State University of Iowa's Writers' Workshop and two years later left with a master's in Fine Arts.

Afterwards, O'Connor wrote and published several short fiction pieces while living for short periods of time in a writers'colony in Saratoga, New York, in New York City, in Milledgeville once again, and in Connecticut. In 1950, she returned to Georgia and was hospitalized due to complications with lupus. She moved to Andalusia farm in Milledgeville with her mother and continued her work. From 1950 to 1964, O'Connor lived on the farm, writing numerous short stories, essays, critical reviews as well as two novels. In August of 1964, O'Connor died from complications of lupus reactivated by surgery earlier that same year.

Biographical information: Getz, Lorine M. Flannery O'Connor: Her Life, Library and Book Reviews. New York: The Edwin Miller Press, 1980.

Photo: O'Connor Collection, Ina Russell Library, Georgia College, Milledgeville, GA.

The Author's Fiction in the World of Working-Class Literature

Although Flannery O'Connor could not herself technically be called a member of the working class, the majority of her characters exist as "good country people" or those who have been displaced from the city to the farm. Whatever the situation of the characters, rural, working-class life is nearly always the focus in her work. Just a few of the critical elements of the working-class genre that O'Connor offers in her pieces include: a show of the many differences between classes, chiefly the ideas that working-class people are happier in their station in life and also experience less loneliness than those of the upper classes, and a heavy focus on the authentic dialogue of the southern working classes. She employs these elements expertly in her work.

O'Connor's texts often address the differences between the working classes and the "owning" classes. In their article, "Toward a Theory of Working-Class Literature," Renny Christopher and Carolyn Whitson comment that "working-class culture does not celebrate individuality. It instead recognizes the interdependence of units of people: family, community, friends, unions" (76). O'Connor confirms the benefits of community that the working class offers by showing upper-class loneliness. In "Good Country People," the farm owner's well-educated daughter is very depressed and lonely but chooses to be so. When her mother and she walk the fields together, the daughter's "remarks were usually so ugly and her face so glum." She rigidly interacted with her mother, not showing any signs of family, community or solidarity with her at all. She informs her mother, "if you want me, here I am LIKE I AM" (274). There is no willingness to commune. Loneliness is also shown among many other middle-class characters in O'Connor's work the farm owner in "The Displaced Person," the teacher Rayber in "The Barber," and Mrs. Turpin in "Revelation" are some additional examples.

Christopher and Whitson claim that "working-class culture has its own exceptional people who do not choose to leave their culture." O'Connor's pieces support this idea. Often she paints the middle-class characters in her pieces as ridiculous or unhappy where the working-class is seemingly well-adjusted and satisfied with their place in life. Old Dudley, in the story "The Geranium," finds himself living in "better" conditions in New York City, having left the poor country life as a boarder and fix-it man in Georgia. His new existence consists of watching a geranium being put out on a neighboring windowsill everyday and constantly thinking about his working-class life in the past. He dreams of the hunting, fishing and small projects he used to do. His new, "improved" life is full of loneliness and sadness, where his old life was clearly much better. He didn't need to be "saved" from his working-class situation. In "The Barber," the working-class barbers, as well as the young black man that works for them, are happy-go-lucky, cheerful. The educated professor, Rayber, seems to suffer enormously when they talk about politics -- Rayber needs to have his opinions heard and accepted and obsesses over the situation when neither result occurs. The barber and surrounding workers merely want to chat and do not care what the outcome is. Although Rayber's ideas and political views are more supportive of the lower classes than their own views, his attitude toward being heard causes him to suffer; the others, happy in their ignorance, just have a good time and do not worry about the content of their talk. The working-classes in O'Connor's texts are seemingly happier than the educated, higher classes.

Christopher and Whitson, in a critical article about working-class literature, state that "working class writers attempt, in various ways, to record the realistic speech patterns of people who do not speak standard English nor conduct conversations along intellectually analytic lines" (73). Perhaps the authentic dialogue of O'Connor's characters is, artistically, her greatest strength. In "The Displaced Person," the white wife of a dairy farm hand addresses two black farm hands:

"Well... yawl have looked long enough. What you think about them?"

"We been watching... who they now?" (She explains that they are "Displaced Persons" who have come to work on the farm.)

"Displaced Persons... Well now. I declare. What do that mean?"

"It means they ain't where they were born at and there's nowhere for them to go -- like if you was run out of here and wouldn't nobody have you."

"It seems like they here, though... if they here, they somewhere" (199).

Here O'Connor offers us an authentic southern dialect -- both among white and black speakers. This passage also shows the speakers' attempt at analyzing what is going on with the displaced persons -- logically discussed or not. Another example of authentic speech as well as homespun logic shows up in "Good Country People." The owner of the farm, Mrs. Hopewell, speaks with a travelling Bible salesman. The two converse, making almost exclusive use of cliches -- something many working-class people take for common wisdom. Mrs. Hopewell responds to something the young man has said, "Why...good country people are the salt of the earth! Besides, we all have different ways of doing, it takes all kinds to make the world go 'round. That's life!" and he replies, "You said a mouthful" (279).

Flannery O'Connor herself did not live as a working-class person. However, in her art, she is able to make the working-class live through her pieces -- the characters give themselves away as a working-class community in their realistic speech, communal attitude and beyond.

Works Cited:

Christopher, Renny and Carolyn Whitson. "Toward a Theory of Working-Class Literature." The NEA Higher Education Journal. Spring, 1999. 71-81.(Click here for an on-line version of the article).

O'Connor, Flannery. The Complete Stories. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1971.

Selected Works by the Author

Novels

Wise Blood (1952)

This is O'Connor's first novel. It is the story of Hazel Motes who decides to found his own church. He encounters several interesting religious characters during his experiences.

The Violent Bear it Away (1960)

O'Connor's second novel. Francis Marion Tarwater is raised by his uncle who says he must become a prophet. When his uncle dies, he decides that he does not want to be a prophet at all.

Short Fiction Anthologies

A Good Man Is Hard to Find (1955)

Her first collection of short stories published. It includes the short story with the same name and eight other short pieces as well.

Everything That Rises Must Converge (1965)

Her second collection of short stories published. It contains the title story as well as "Revelation" and "The Lame Shall Enter First." It offers a total of nine short stories.

The Complete Stories (1971)

Thirty-one of her short stories are featured here. Included among them: "A Good Man is Hard to Find," "The Displaced Person," "Good Country People," "Revelation" and "Greenleaf."

Other Works

The Habit of Being: Letters (1979), ed. by Sally Fitzgerald

A collection of published letters that O'Connor herself wrote to friends. It shows her personality and humor even more fully than her fiction.

The Presence of Grace and Other Book Reviews (1983), ed. by Carter W. Martin

A collection of book reviews that O'Connor wrote about other authors' works. Many had been published previously in magazines before coming together in this anthology.

Selected Works about the Author's Life and Work

Recent Books

Flannery O'Connor: A Life, Jean W. Cash (2002)

This is a biography about O'Connor that focuses on factual information: her works, her schooling and travels. Cash is a faithful reporter who does not speculate much beyond the facts of this author's life. There are some interesting photos in the text as well.

Revising Flannery O'Connor : Southern Literary Culture and the Problem of Female Authorship, Katherine Hemple Prown (2001)

An interesting look at O'Connor's work through the aspect of gender. Prown studies reasons why O'Connor's work had not been previously focused on by feminist literary critics. She also looks at O'Connor's shift in gender perspectives in her work as time passed during her lifetime and writings.

Flannery O'Connor, Hermit Novelist, Richard Giannone (2000)

Giannone focuses on O'Connor's religious ideas shown through some of her characters in her works and compares them to the ascetics of the beginnings of Christianity. He discusses O'Connor's religious scholarship and solitude extensively.

Writing Against God : Language as Message in the Literature of Flannery O'Connor, Joanne Halleran McMullen (1996)

This interesting critical text about O'Connor's work addresses the theme of Catholicism. McMullen argues that although O'Connor showed extreme seriousness about being Catholic in her life and putting her beliefs into her fiction, some of her pieces' themes are actually in conflict with what she professed to believe.

American Gargoyles : Flannery O'Connor and the Medieval Grotesque, Anthony Di Renzo (1993)

Di Renzo offers his idea that O'Connor's work -- specifically the way she displays her strange brand of humor -- is similar to medieval art, literature and architecture.

Recent Articles

Desmond, John F. "Flannery O'Connor and the Symbol." Logos: A Journal of Catholic Thought and Culture Volume: 5, Issue: 2, May 01, 2002. pp. 143-156.

This article focuses on O'Connor's Catholic belief that the host is actually the body of Christ as well as the wine being his blood. Also discussed are other ways that O'Connor viewed religious "symbols."

Folks, Jeffrey J. (Jeffrey Jay). "Telos and Existence: Ethics in C. S. Lewis's Space Trilogy and Flannery O'Connor's 'Everything That Rises Must Converge.'" Southern Literary Journal Volume: 35, Issue: 2, August 12, 2003. pp. 107-118.

Here Folks discusses the idea of ethical reading -- that literature might help readers see the "consequences of their choices," specifically in the two pieces mentioned in the title of the article. Also visited is the idea that spirituality is not always welcomed by the reader nor the critic.

Gilbert, Susanna. "'Blood Don't Lie': The Diseased Family in Flannery O'Connor's 'Everything That Rises Must Converge.'" Literature and Medicine Volume: 18, Issue: 1, April 01, 1999. pp. 114-131.

This interesting article draws a connection between the experiences O'Connor suffered through her disease, systemic lupus, and her work, particularly the piece "Everything That Rises Must Converge."

Jackson, Robert A. "Religion, Idolatry, and Catholic Irony: Flannery O'Connor's Modest Literary Vision." Logos: A Journal of Catholic Thought and Culture Volume: 5, Issue: 1, February 01, 2002. pp. 13-40.

Here Jackson argues that had O'Connor lived longer, she would have developed even further into an important writer. He marvels at her work with the short time she had to do it in, and discusses several critics' comments about this situation.

Schaum, Melita. "Erasing Angel: The Lucifer-Trickster Character in Flannery O'Connor's Short Fiction." Southern Literary Journal Volume: 33, Issue: 1, December 01, 2000. pp. 1-26.

Schaum acknowledges that O'Connor wrote from a very Catholic point of view. However, she also believes that looking at her works from a more mythological standpoint, focusing on the archetype of "trickster" in her works, can be very interesting as well.



	About the Center Who we are Current projects Lecture series History/archives Graduate certificate New Working-Class Studies Why & How Other projects Opportunities & Announcements New Working-Class Studies Association Resources Blogs CWCS Projects Links Survey Archives Museums Video Teaching Syllabus Library Teaching about class WCS courses at YSU Articles Support the Center Blog