Everything That Rises Must Converge

Everything That
Rises Must
Converge
Study Guide by Course Hero
of a human mind. O'Connor is merciless in unfolding this view,

What's Inside and her stories are not quickly or easily forgotten. These nine
short works constitute O'Connor's last literary output. She put
the finishing touches on the collection while dying of lupus, a
j Book Basics ................................................................................................. 1 painful autoimmune disease. They are arguably her best
stories, where she portrays a fallen world through the lens of
d In Context .................................................................................................... 2
her austere Catholic faith and philosophy—which she herself
a Author Biography ..................................................................................... 5 called medieval. In this fallen world, sinful human beings are like
the incarnated Christ, in that the body and the material world
h Characters .................................................................................................. 6 are the vehicles through which God bestows grace. The reader
does not have to be Catholic or even religious to appreciate
k Plot Summary ............................................................................................ 11
these stories, each one a little gem written in highly polished
and pared language. O'Connor forces readers to look into the
c Story Summaries .................................................................................... 14
heart of human darkness. She ultimately leaves it up to them to
g Quotes ........................................................................................................ 36 determine whether it is possible for an individual to rise and
converge at the omega point referred to in the title.
l Symbols ..................................................................................................... 40
PERSPECTIVE AND NARRATOR
m Themes ....................................................................................................... 41 All nine stories are told by a third-person narrator, usually
focusing on the protagonist's point of view. The author uses
verbal irony to create a tone of humor and sarcasm, resulting in
a deliberate distance between the narrator and characters.
j Book Basics The tone allows the narrator to judge the characters and
highlights inconsistencies in what they may say or think about
AUTHOR themselves versus how they appear to the reader. The effects
Flannery O'Connor are often comedic, in the sense of tragicomedy or black humor.
Black humor treats serious, painful, or tragic events with
YEAR PUBLISHED
inappropriate lightness for the purpose of creating comedy or
1956–65
imposing an alternative view on the subject matter at hand.
GENRE
TENSE
Comedy, Fiction, Religion
The stories in the collection Everything That Rises Must
Converge are narrated primarily in the past tense.
AT A GLANCE
Flannery O'Connor, considered by many to be the best
ABOUT THE TITLE
American short-story writer of the 20th century, is lauded
The title Everything That Rises Must Converge comes from a
mostly for her so-called Southern Gothic style and use of the
remark made by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1888–1955), a
grotesque. However, a more nuanced view is that her fiction
Jesuit priest, paleontologist, and strong supporter of the
brilliantly unmasks the human ego, dissecting its innumerable
theory of evolution. As a theologian, he believed evolution had
layers and demonstrating how self-delusion is part and parcel
a theological purpose: the perfection of humanity. He famously
Everything That Rises Must Converge Study Guide In Context 2
said, "Remain true to yourself, but move ever upward toward keeps receding, humanity continues to perfect itself as it
greater consciousness and greater love! At the summit you will pursues God. The final goal of evolution is to arrive at that
find yourselves united with all those who, from every direction, place in which individuals and all of humanity become
have made the same ascent. For everything that rises must perfected and united in God, and the world becomes divinized
converge." and filled with God.
In the first half of the 20th century, the Catholic Church had
objections to Teilhard's theological writings. It objected first
d In Context because it saw the theory of evolution as a threat to Church

teachings about how the world was created and second
because Teilhard's ideas indirectly challenged the Catholic
view of original sin and the reason for Christ's incarnation.
Teilhard de Chardin and (Nowadays, the Church accepts the theory of evolution and
can reconcile it with Catholic doctrine.) Pope Pius XI
Flannery O'Connor (1857–1939) ordered Teilhard to sign a statement disavowing
his ideas on original sin. In 1928 Teilhard's Jesuit superiors
The title of this collection is taken from a remark made by forbade him to pursue further theological work and ordered
theologian Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881–1955), a Jesuit him to confine himself to scientific study. Consequently,
priest and paleontologist. Teilhard was a strong supporter of Teilhard's major philosophical works were published after his
the theory of evolution, although he parted company with death in 1955, and the Church put a warning on them in 1962
British naturalist Charles Darwin (1809–82) by believing God's for "ambiguities and indeed even serious [doctrinal] errors."
ultimate purpose or goal drew evolution forward. He famously However, reading Teilhard was not strictly forbidden to
said, "Remain true to yourself, but move ever upward toward Catholics, and as a result, he became quite popular with
greater consciousness and greater love! At the summit you will intellectual Catholics of O'Connor's era.
find yourselves united with all those who, from every direction,
have made the same ascent. For everything that rises must O'Connor was widely read in Christian theology, both
converge." Protestant and Catholic. She had read Teilhard and felt an
affinity with some of his views, although it is likely she did not
As a paleontologist, Teilhard came under fire for his entirely subscribe to his view of original sin. Critics disagree
interpretation of the Catholic doctrine of original sin as it about how far O'Connor's thinking was aligned with this
relates to evolution. According to orthodox dogma, humanity modern-day Catholic mystic. O'Connor scholar Ralph C. Wood
fell from grace when Adam and Eve disobeyed God's says, "At one time ... she became enamored of Teilhard de
command in the Garden of Eden to refrain from eating the fruit Chardin's attempt to unite evolutionary naturalism with
of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. To redeem Christian faith" but later rejected this theory. O'Connor
humanity, God entered the world as the Second Person, or particularly liked Teilhard's idea of passive diminishment, in
Jesus Christ, and was crucified to atone for human sin. Human which a person must learn to bear "those afflictions that you
beings are born with this original sin, the stain of the first can't get rid of."
parents, which may be expunged only through baptism. This
line of thinking presupposes Adam and Eve were already in a In the introduction to Everything That Rises Must Converge,
state of perfect grace before the Fall. American poet and critic Robert Fitzgerald (1910–85),
O'Connor's literary executor and close friend, notes the title is
On the other hand, Teilhard says original sin can best be taken from Teilhard "in full respect and with profound and
understood as the condition of the original act of creation. He necessary irony." A practicing Catholic like O'Connor,
sees Darwinian evolution as a process of becoming, in which Fitzgerald calls Teilhard's vision of the omega point at the end
human beings are moving toward perfection. In the book of of time as "one more path past the Crucifixion." He calls
Revelation, Jesus Christ says, "I am the Alpha and the Omega, O'Connor's stories in this volume a "corrective" of that view. He
the First and the Last, the beginning and the End."Teilhard writes, "Her vision will hold us down to earth where the clashes
says the Omega point is the living Christ. Because the point of blind wills and the low dodges of the heart permit any rising
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or convergence only at the cost of agony." Fitzgerald calls Protestantism.) They also believed in God's grace, which led to
O'Connor's work tragicomedy, which he considers to be "the salvation. The experience of conversion—a transformative
most Christian of genres" and reminds readers O'Connor experience in which a person turns away from sin and accepts
described her first collection as "nine stories about original God's grace—was a key feature of evangelicalism. In the
sin." Thus, O'Connor applies Teilhard's vision as verbal irony, conversion experience a person feels the omnipotence of
naming and juxtaposing his vision to the sinful state of the God—both his power and mercy—and realizes Jesus Christ has
world. And only at great cost does a human being in brought salvation to humanity through his death on the cross
O'Connor's stories experience any rising or convergence—and to atone for human sin.
often at the moment of death.
Fundamentalism was linked to evangelism, or the imperative to
spread the Christian word of God. Opposed to scientific
Catholics and Protestants in thinking, particularly evolution, fundamentalists accept Bible

stories literally.
the South Baptists and Methodists were the hub of this more democratic
religion that did not rely on an elitist clergy and that
The first form of Christianity in the American South was empowered poor and working-class people. Early Evangelicals
Catholicism, brought by the Spanish Catholic conquistadors. criticized slavery and won early converts among the slave
They arrived with Jesuit priests, whose mission was to convert population. But as this new Christianity spread and its
and "civilize" the indigenous people. The Jesuits worked among adherents became more prosperous, they abandoned their
the Native Americans near Chesapeake Bay and at Parris earlier ideals, including their hostility toward slavery.
Island, South Carolina. Catholicism became the dominant
religion in Louisiana and parts of Florida. Maryland was As the Northern and Southern states grew further apart over
founded in the 17th century by Catholics who came to the New the issue of slavery, Southern religious leaders sided with slave
World to escape the persecution of English Protestants. owners and helped promote Southern nationalism. Before the
Nonetheless, the religious history of the South is almost South seceded from the Union in the run-up to the Civil War
exclusively Protestant, much of it evangelical and (1861–65), the Baptists and Methodists in the South had
fundamentalist, meaning Protestant Christians in the South seceded from their religions, becoming the Southern Baptists
sought to convert others to their belief that the words of the and the Southern Methodists. The Presbyterians also split with
Bible were literal truth from the mouth of God. their Northern brethren before the war. After the Civil War, the
Southern churches continued to promote regionalism and
The first form of Protestantism in the South was Anglicanism, Southern culture.
the religion of the Church of England. After the American
Revolution (1775–83), the Anglican Church was The Catholics were a small part of the religious picture in the
"disestablished," and the Episcopal Church took its place. Most South since most Catholic immigrants went North.
American Episcopalians belonged to the upper classes. After Nonetheless, some Catholics remained in the South, and some
1750 Scotch-Irish Presbyterians, Baptists, Quakers, Lutherans, had a long history there. The Catholic Church in the South
and Methodists moved South because land was cheap. These sanctioned slavery, with one Catholic bishop even delivering a
new influences overpowered the earlier Anglican and pro-slavery sermon at the beginning of the Civil War. After the
Episcopal belief systems. Whereas the First Great Awakening, war, Southerners defended "Southern civilization," closely
a series of Christian revivals in the 1730s and 1740s, was associated with certain attitudes, customs, and cultural beliefs
primarily a Northern religious movement, the Second Great that were linked to the legacy of slavery and unequal relations
Awakening, beginning around 1800, was a national movement between blacks and whites. Religious institutions in the South
that had a profound impact on the South. sanctioned the "Southern way of life," blurring the lines
between Christianity and regional culture. Much more than in
The evangelical Protestantism of the Second Great Awakening the North, religion was at the center of Southern lives.
emphasized personal religious experience over religious book
learning. American Evangelicals shared the Calvinist belief in Southerners continued to be haunted by their defeat in the
humanity's basic sinfulness. (Calvinism is another sect of Civil War and by their humiliation at the hands of Northern

Reconstructionists who attempted to impose new values on

them. Southern attitudes only hardened as a result, and by the O'Connor and Race
1890s, white supremacy was a tenet of faith for proponents of
the "Southern way of life." In a series of Supreme Court cases, Sympathy with the South and loyalty toward her Southern
civil rights acts meant to uphold the rights of African roots are largely responsible for Flannery O'Connor's
Americans were weakened. In the case of Plessy v. Ferguson ambiguity about the Civil Rights movement and integration.
(1896), the Supreme Court ruled states had the right to O'Connor was suspicious of the moral righteousness of
segregate the races, as long as the accommodations or Northerners on the subject of race, and she did not hide her
services offered to the separate races were "equal." This ruling own prejudices from herself or from the world. She believed
ushered in the Jim Crow era and institutional segregation the cause of integration was just, but on the other hand, she
below the Mason-Dixon line. Although white churches did not feared the passing of a way of life imbued with a
condone racial violence, they supported segregation and preoccupation with God. She understood that because
disenfranchisement of black voters. Southern Christian ideals were so inextricably linked with racial
inequality, it was inevitable that greater equality would
The South was historically anti-Catholic, like the rest of the undermine traditional Southern religious values, manners, and
nation, but this prejudice lasted longer in the South than mores.
elsewhere. Protestants in the South perceived Catholics as
alien, and anti-Catholic sentiment united Southern white In her stories she freely uses the highly pejorative and
Protestants against a common enemy. The divide between emotionally charged term nigger, putting this offensive word in
Protestants and Catholics was rooted in long-standing the mouths and minds of her characters as part of everyday
animosities brought from Europe. Protestant distrust of speech and thought. Yet her stories reproduce authentic
Catholics is connected, to some degree, with the fear that regional dialogue as well as ingrained racist attitudes.
because Catholics obey the pope, they do not believe in Conversely, the narrative voice in her stories always uses the
separation of church and state as laid out in the U.S. more respectful term of her time, Negro, to refer to African
Constitution. Until the Civil Rights movement united white American characters. However, O'Connor also used the term
Christians in their opposition to social change, religion had nigger in her nonfiction writing and in conversations with
been almost as important as race as a boundary between friends when referring to black people as part of her everyday
social groups. speech, echoing regional Southern diction. While she clearly
saw racism as an evil, she also was aware she herself had
To understand Flannery O'Connor, it is important to racial prejudices for which she did not apologize.
understand this religious history of the South. O'Connor's
family were well-established Southern Catholics, and O'Connor
gives little indication in her stories of the role of Catholics as O'Connor and the Devil
outsiders. Rather, many of her characters are Protestant
fundamentalists of firm faith who maintain the Bible is literal The devil is a real and malevolent presence in the world, both
truth and focus on Jesus Christ, the incarnation of God. Unlike for a fundamentalist Protestant and a self-described 13th-
Catholics, they do not believe in Purgatory, an intermediate century Christian like Flannery O'Connor. In Christian origin
place after death in which a person expiates their sins until stories, the devil is equated with the serpent in the Garden of
they are purified enough to be accepted into heaven. Eden, a narrative that appears in Genesis, the first book of the
Fundamentalists believe human beings go either to heaven or Hebrew Bible. This same serpent who becomes the devil is
hell when they die. At the heart of O'Connor's stories is the also equated with the brightest and most favored of the
Protestant notion of conversion—or what O'Connor, as a angels, Lucifer, expelled from heaven because he wished to be
Catholic, calls the reception of divine grace. Protagonists are the equal of the Creator. Thus, Lucifer and his army are cast
tested and often come up short—either missing grace down into hell because of their extreme hubris, or ego. They
altogether or receiving grace only at the moment of death. lack the humility of a creature of God, who owes everything to
the Creator yet forgets where he or she came from.
While O'Connor likely believed the devil tempted people to

Everything That Rises Must Converge Study Guide Author Biography 5
commit evil deeds, she never inserts the devil into her stories in the walls of the student lounge. Graduating from Georgia State
any blatant or literal way. Rather, as noted by literary critic College for Women in 1945, O'Connor was offered a journalism
Melita Schaum, a "Lucifer-Trickster" character often appears scholarship from the University of Iowa. In her first term of
to test the protagonists, bringing to light their duplicity, greed, graduate school, she realized journalism was not her vocation
selfishness, or egotism. More often than not, the Lucifer- and asked to be admitted to the creative writing program, now
Trickster facilitates a protagonist's self-destruction. While the famous as the Iowa Writers' Workshop.
Lucifer-Trickster is prominent in O'Connor's earlier stories, he
shows up as an abstraction in the stories in Everything That At the Workshop she became friends with important writers
Rises Must Converge—more specifically, as people's delusions and critics who lectured or taught in the program, among them
about themselves. For example, in the title story of the volume, Robert Penn Warren (1905–89), John Crowe Ransom
Julian deludes himself into believing he is liberal about race (1888–1974), Austin Warren (1899–1986), and Andrew Lytle
and superior to his mother for this reason, when in fact he (1902–95). Editor of the journal Sewanee Review, Lytle was
longs for the days of the antebellum or post–Civil War South, one of O'Connor's earliest admirers and published several of
even as he persecutes his mother for her racism. He pretends her stories. Her first story, "The Geranium," was published in
he does not lean on his mother or need her, but when she falls 1946 and was part of a collection of stories she wrote as her
down with a stroke, all he can do is cry out, "Mamma!" Master's thesis. As a graduate student, O'Connor continued to
attend church and kept a prayer journal from 1946 to 1947.
a Author Biography Writing Life

In 1947 O'Connor won the Rinehart-Iowa Fiction Award for a
Early Years portion of her first novel, Wise Blood and was accepted at
Yaddo, an artists' retreat in Saratoga Springs, New York,
Mary Flannery O'Connor was born on March 25, 1925, in where she became friends with poet Robert Lowell (1917–77).
Savannah, Georgia, to a prominent Roman Catholic family. In She lived for a short time in New York City, where she met
1938 Flannery moved with her mother, Regina Cline O'Connor, Sally (1916–2000) and Robert Fitzgerald (1910–85), who
to Regina's family home in Milledgeville after Flannery's father, became lifelong friends. She moved into their garage
Edward, was appointed a zone real-estate appraiser for the apartment in Ridgefield, Connecticut, where she boarded for
Federal Housing Administration in Atlanta. The move allowed nearly two years. Fitzgerald, a poet and critic, and his wife,
him to visit his family on weekends. Shortly afterward, however, Sally, also were devout Catholics. O'Connor went to Mass
he became sick with lupus erythematosus, an autoimmune (Catholic service) every day, taking the drive with one of the
disease in which the body attacks its own tissues and organs. Fitzgeralds, while the other stayed home to mind the children.
O'Connor's beloved father died when she was 15. The Fitzgeralds provided O'Connor with both the intellectual
company and solitude she needed to write.
Education This stabilizing and productive time was interrupted in 1950,

however, when O'Connor was stricken with lupus, the
incurable, autoimmune disease her father died of. At that time
The trauma of her father's death resulted in her decision to
treatment for the disease was crude, and the doctors put
remain in Milledgeville and attend Georgia State College for
O'Connor on an experimental steroid drug and blood
Women in an accelerated three-year program.
transfusions. She spent the winter and spring of her sickness
A gifted artist and cartoonist, O'Connor provided cartoons, in Emory Hospital in Atlanta. She was then forced to return to
fiction, and essays for the Corinthian, GSCW's literary Milledgeville permanently, where her mother ran a dairy farm
magazine, displaying a preference for satire and comedy. As and made a home for them for the last 13 years of O'Connor's
editor of the Corinthian, and as unofficial campus cartoonist, short life. On the farm, O'Connor and her mother famously kept
she drew cartoons for all the campus publications and even for peacocks, which for O'Connor were a symbol of Jesus Christ.
She believed their tails were full of suns. After her death,

Everything That Rises Must Converge Study Guide Characters 6
Robert Fitzgerald became O'Connor's literary executor, and terrible world we are coming to endurable; the only thing that
Sally Fitzgerald edited O'Connor's letters, published as The makes the Church endurable is that it is somehow the body of
Habit of Being (1988). Christ and that on this we are fed." When she looked out at the
world, she saw its sinfulness—even the sinfulness inside the
Church. Yet, in her view, it was only the spiritual life lived
Body of Work through the body that gave people the possibility of accessing
God's grace. She was a foe of secular humanism (belief that
Between bouts of sickness O'Connor continued to write, read humans can be moral without God) and civil religion (implied
widely, and correspond with friends. She produced two short religious values of a nation), saying that "dogma is an
novels, Wise Blood (1952) and The Violent Bear It Away (1960), instrument for penetrating reality" and asserting that her
and two collections of short stories: A Good Man Is Hard to stories were "watered and fed by Dogma."
Find and Other Stories (1955) and Everything That Rises Must
O'Connor's stories are peopled with Protestant
Converge, published posthumously in 1965. Robert and Sally
fundamentalists, many of them uneducated country people,
Fitzgerald edited a volume of O'Connor's essay and lectures,
and for the most part her characters' spiritual epiphanies are
titled Mystery and Manners in 1969. In 1971 her publisher
framed in the belief systems of Baptists or Methodists or some
brought out a volume of her complete stories, which won a
other Protestant sect. This choice comes from the affinity
National Book Award in 1972. Additional posthumous volumes
O'Connor feels with fundamentalists for whom religion is a
are The Presence of Grace and Other Book Reviews (1983) and
living presence in their lives. She sympathizes with these
A Prayer Journal (2013).
uneducated and often racist people who read the Bible literally,
believe the world was created in six days, and do not doubt
that Satan exerts his malevolent power in the temporal realm.
O'Connor's Worldview As a Southerner, she acknowledged the evils of racism but
never apologized for them, and she made the claim that racism
O'Connor's works seem incongruous to some critics because
was a smaller part of a larger evil. She lived to see the early
the author was profoundly religious, yet her works are darkly
days of the fight against racial discrimination with the Civil
comic and brutal and feature surprising, unsettling acts of
Rights Movement of the 1950s and 60s, about which she had
violence. Moreover, her characters are often unsympathetic or
ambiguous feelings, for she knew that dismantling the old
downright bad. O'Connor's answer to the critics was that
"Southern way of life" would also mean dismantling aspects of
violence "is strangely capable of returning my characters to
Southern culture she believed were valuable.
reality and preparing them to accept their moment of grace."
According to critic Melita Schaum, O'Connor often employs a
"Lucifer-Trickster" character to bring her literary creations
face to face with their sinfulness and unacknowledged hubris.
Death and Legacy
O'Connor put her Catholic faith at the center of her life and art. Ill through much of her literary life, O'Connor continued to work
She believed she was living in a time during which on her last and arguably best collection of stories through her
consumerism, conformity, and homogenization were final sickness. She fell into a coma and died on August 3, 1964.
destroying spiritual possibilities and miring people in a Despite her short life, Flannery O'Connor is considered by
materialistic desert. She famously called herself a 13th-century some critics to be the best American short-story writer of the
Catholic. Unlike some other modern Catholic writers, she 20th century. Without a doubt, her stories are compelling,
believed wholeheartedly in the mysteries of the Church, such unsettling, startling, and memorable.
as the transubstantiation of the Eucharist, in which bread and
wine are said to be transformed into the body and blood of
Christ. When fellow Catholic writer Mary McCarthy (1912–89) h Characters
opined the Eucharist was a symbol, O'Connor famously said,
"Well, if it's a symbol, to hell with it." She wrote to one friend
that "the Church is the one thing that is going to make the

Julian Asbury
Having recently completed his college education, Julian is living Asbury comes down with undulant fever after drinking
with his mother until he can establish himself. With ambitions of unpasteurized milk, as an act of defiance against his mother.
being a writer, he is currently working as a typewriter Another of O'Connor's weak, "so-called" intellectuals, Asbury is
salesman, a job in which he takes little pride. He both loves and a failed writer, smug and superior. He blames his mother for his
hates his mother. He hates her because he needs her and lack of creativity and demeans her every chance he gets, so
because she represents ideas he is trying to escape. He loves much so that the hired men in the dairy comment on his
her because she is his mother, but he fails to show her disrespect. In the end he thinks he has a vision of the Holy
compassion in his effort to separate himself from her and Ghost.
punish her for her backward ideas about Southern gentility and
particularly race. He is ashamed of their genteel poverty and
guilty about his mother's history of sacrifice for his sake. He Thomas
himself is punished by his mother's demise and forced to face
his own delusions and hypocrisy. Thomas thinks of himself as a good man, and he avoids Star,
the 19-year-old waif and budding criminal his mother has taken
into their home in an act of charity. Her "good deeds" may be
Mrs. May admirable and well-intentioned, but in this case Thomas is
unnerved by the aggressive interloper who interferes with his
Mrs. May has successfully run a dairy farm with the help of Mr. set patterns of life. Star pursues Thomas sexually, but he fends
Greenleaf, a lower-class white man who has been her hired her off. To get rid of Star, Thomas violates his own code of
help for many years. The two of them have an adversarial ethics by enlisting the help of a dishonest sheriff. When Star
relationship, primarily because Mrs. May considers herself attacks him physically, he shoots his mother, who steps in front
superior to the Greenleafs. Although she doesn't admit it to of Star to protect her from the violence.
herself, she is jealous of Greenleaf's sons, who work hard and
respect their father, while Mrs. May's adult sons live with her
and disrespect her. Mrs. May is punished for her smug egotism Sheppard
and atheistic Christianity when her attempt to force Greenleaf
to kill the stray bull, belonging to his sons, ends with the animal A professed atheist, Sheppard takes 14-year-old delinquent
goring her to death. Rufus Johnson under his wing and seems to prefer him to his
own son, Norton. Sheppard thinks his son is selfish and should
overcome his lingering grief about the death of his mother
Mr. Fortune more than a year ago. Johnson is not the least bit needy and
has deep faith in his fundamentalist beliefs. While Sheppard
Mr. Fortune, with his inflated ego, can love only those he sees tries to turn Johnson into an atheist, Johnson instead turns
as a reflection of himself. In his unceasing spite, he sells off his Norton into a believer. Sheppard ultimately realizes he cannot
land because he takes satisfaction in hurting his son-in-law help Johnson and has neglected his own son. However, his
and because he sees himself as an agent of progress. He repentance comes too late to save Norton from a catastrophe.
clams to love his favorite grandchild, Mary Fortune, but he
continues to act in a way that causes her father to beat her. In
the end, he kills her because she defies him. He loves her only Mrs. Turpin
as long as he sees her as a reflection of himself.
Ruby Turpin has a preoccupation with categorizing people
according to class and race and, in her mind, relative worth.
She feels thankful to God she is a good person and has been
given blessings, which she doesn't hesitate to enumerate for

those around her. She is also grateful God has granted her a
station in life above others. After she is attacked by a young
college student in a doctor's office, she rethinks her point of
view and comes to the realization that her vision of creation is
skewed.
Parker
Parker has lived his life as an itinerant handyman and a sinner
unconsciously seeking redemption. Parker ends up marrying,
almost against his conscious will, a hard-nosed fundamentalist
woman, full of judgment and lacking in imagination. After
Parker has a spiritual epiphany, he gets the Byzantine face of
Christ tattooed on his back, mostly to please his wife—so he
thinks. But she rejects his offering as idolatry because she
says Jesus is a spirit. Parker himself is redeemed but suffers
like Christ for his newfound knowledge.
Tanner
Tanner's daughter urges her father to return with her to New
York City after she finds him living in a shack with his friend
Coleman Parrum, a black man. The two have been friends for
30 years. He and Coleman have been squatting on land that
now belongs to a middle-class black man, who will allow them
to stay if they agree to share some of the profits of their illegal
whiskey still. Tanner agrees to live with his daughter to avoid
the humiliation of working for a black man. Tanner hates living
in a cramped apartment and longs for home and his friend
Coleman. However, Tanner ends up dying in New York after he
reaches out to a Northern and sophisticated black neighbor
who reminds him of the South. The neighbor hastens Tanner's
death when Tanner treats him with the same condescension
he would show a black man in the South.

Full Character List Dr. Block

The family doctor in "The Enduring Chill,"
Dr. Block diagnoses Asbury's illness as
undulant fever.
Character Description
Sarah Ruth Cates marries O.E. Parker in
the story "Parker's Back," even though
Julian is the "intellectual" and self-
they seem to be polar opposites and she
righteous protagonist in "Everything That
Sarah Ruth hates his tattoos. She ultimately rejects
Julian Rises Must Converge." Failing to show his
Cates her husband's turning to her for guidance
mother compassion, he realizes too late
because she is too rigid to accept his
how much he loves her.
manifestation of newfound faith: a new
tattoo on his back that pictures Christ.
The central character of "Greenleaf," Mrs.
May is a self-righteous dairy farmer,
Mrs. May Tanner's black friend in "Judgement Day,"
whose egotism and lack of faith result in
Coleman Parrum willingly takes a
her death without redemption. Coleman
subservient role in his long relationship
with Tanner.
Mr. Fortune, the protagonist in "A View of
Mr. Fortune the Woods," is a stubborn, egotistical, and
The mixed-race man in "Judgement Day,"
spiteful old man.
who buys the property Tanner and his
friend Coleman are squatting on, Dr.
Dr. Foley
Asbury, the protagonist of "The Enduring Foley tells Tanner he has to work the
Asbury Chill," thinks he is dying but ends up dying whiskey still for him if he wants to stay on
only in terms of his old way of life. the land.
In "The Comforts of Home," Thomas is a Mary Fortune Pitts is the nine-year old
selfish 35-year-old historian who lives granddaughter of Mr. Fortune in "A View
Thomas Mary
with his beloved mother but gets angry at of the Woods." She looks and acts like
Fortune
her for her radical charity. her grandfather but ultimately sides with
her father against Mr. Fortune.
Sheppard, the protagonist in "The Lame

Shall Enter First," volunteers as a Mrs. Fox is Asbury's mother in "The
counselor at a reformatory. He considers Enduring Chill." She runs a successful
Sheppard Mrs. Fox dairy farm, has put her children through
himself a good and unselfish man, but his
blindness and egotism lead to the death college, and takes care of Asbury when
of his only son. he come home ill.
Mrs. Ruby Turpin, the protagonist of Mr. Greenleaf in the story "Greenleaf" is a
"Revelation," is a talkative, self-satisfied, lower-class hired hand engaged in a long
Mr.
Mrs. Turpin and judgmental Christian who is adversarial relationship with his employer,
Greenleaf
redeemed when she realizes she is no Mrs. May. He inadvertently is responsible
better than anyone else. for a bull's goring Mrs. May to death.
O.E. Parker, also known as Obadiah In "Greenleaf," Mrs. Greenleaf practices a

Elihue Parker, is the protagonist of kind of personal, demonic Christianity in
Parker "Parker's Back." Parker has lived his life Mrs. which she buries newspaper clippings
as an itinerant sinner who has an Greenleaf dealing with tragedy and violence and
unconscious desire for redemption. then prays over them by groveling in the
dirt.
The protagonist of "Judgement Day,"

Tanner is a feeble, old, Southern white
Tanner
man living in New York City, where he
ends up dying because of his racism.

The twin sons of Mr. and Mrs. Greenleaf, Norton is Sheppard's son in "The Lame
in "Greenleaf," O.T. and E.T. have Shall Enter First." He is bereft about his
Greenleaf prospered. They own their own farm, mother's death, but his father has no
twins behave respectfully to their parents, and sympathy for him and simply thinks he is
Norton
have more modern equipment than Mrs. selfish. Norton becomes a sacrificial lamb
May has. in that his death becomes the agent for
his father's realization of the full
dimension of his own sinfulness.
In "Everything That Rises Must
Converge," Julian's mother is a poor,
genteel remnant of the Old South. She Mr. Pitts is Mary Fortune's father in "A
Julian's
loves her son without reservation but View of the Woods." He beats his
mother Mr. Pitts
infuriates him with her old ideas about daughter to get even with Mr. Fortune
race and class. Her condescension and to prove she belongs to him.
toward black people results in her death.
Mrs. Pitts sides with her husband against

Mary George is Asbury's sister in "The Mrs. Pitts her daughter, Mary Fortune, in the story
Mary Enduring Chill." An elementary school "A View of the Woods."
George principal, she mocks her brother whom
she sees as self-important and talentless.
In "The Enduring Chill," Randall is one of
the black dairymen Asbury tries to
In "Revelation," Mary Grace is the college befriend when attempting to write a novel
Randall
student who attacks Mrs. Turpin in the about the black experience. Randall says
doctor's office after the woman keeps nothing when Asbury insists on drinking
Mary Grace
repeating, "Thank you, Jesus!" Mary unpasteurized milk to spite his mother.
Grace calls the self-satisfied and bigoted
Mrs. Turpin an "old wart hog" from hell.
Scofield, in the story "Greenleaf," is the
disrespectful and malicious son of Mrs.
Scofield
In "Judgement Day," Hooten is a Georgia May, who sells insurance to poor black
friend of Tanner's who Tanner imagines people.
Hooten
will meet his coffin when it is shipped
home.
Star Drake, also known as Sarah Ham, is
a 19-year-old drifter caught passing bad
The delinquent 14-year-old in "The Lame checks in "The Comforts of Home." She
Star
Shall Enter First," Rufus Johnson is is rescued from jail by Thomas's mother,
unrepentant about his bad deeds but is who unsuccessfully attempts to reform
Rufus
also a strong believer and has accepted her.
Johnson
that he will end up in hell unless he
repents. He becomes the nemesis of his
atheistic mentor Sheppard. The "stylish lady" is Mary Grace's mother
in "Revelation." In her conversation with
Stylish lady Mrs. Turpin in the doctor's office, the
In "The Enduring Chill," Morgan is one of stylish lady appears somewhat less
the black dairymen Asbury tries to judgmental than Mrs. Turpin.
Morgan
befriend in his attempt to write a novel
about the black experience.
Thomas's mother in "The Comforts of
Home" takes a 19-year-old waif and
Thomas's
"The Negro," also called "Preacher" by budding criminal under her wing, against
mother
Tanner, is the black neighbor Tanner tries the wishes of her son. This act of radical
to befriend in "Judgement Day." The charity results in her death.
The Negro neighbor is an angry actor who has no
intention of putting up with racial
condescension and hastens Tanner's
death at the end of the story.

Everything That Rises Must Converge Study Guide Plot Summary 11
Tanner's daughter in "Judgement Day"

lives in New York with her husband. After
Greenleaf
visiting him in the South, she takes her
father back North because she objects to Mrs. May, a widow who runs a dairy farm, has a long-standing
Tanner's
his living in poverty with a black man, adversarial relationship with the hired man, Mr. Greenleaf. After
daughter
although she herself lives in an integrated
years together, they feel mutual loathing for each other. She
apartment building in New York. She has
no intention of carrying out her father's has two sullen grown sons who still live with her and show
wish to be buried back home in Georgia. nothing but disrespect. A stray bull has found its way onto Mrs.
May's property, and one of her sons spitefully informs her the
Mr. Claud Turpin is Ruby Turpin's devoted bull belongs to Mr. Greenleaf's twin sons, who have done well
Mr. Claud
husband, who supports her without since they left the army, even starting their own farm. Mrs. May
Turpin
judgment in "Revelation."
cannot help but compare the Greenleaf boys to her own,
especially because the Greenleafs are unrefined and ignorant,
Wesley in the story "Greenleaf" is Mrs.
Wesley May's lazy, intellectual son who seems to and Mrs. Greenleaf practices an exaggerated form of prayer
hate everybody and everything. healing of which Mrs. May disapproves. Mrs. May insists
Greenleaf go after the bull and kill it, once she realizes his sons
have no intention of retrieving the animal. The Greenleaf sons
bought the animal for its meat, but it keeps running away. Mr.
k Plot Summary Greenleaf doesn't want to shoot the bull, so he ends up
drawing out the chase while Mrs. May waits in the pasture. He
throws sharp rocks at the animal so it will run farther away, but
Everything That Rises Must the bull becomes enraged and runs out from some underbrush,
goring Mrs. May to death.
Converge
Julian has a love-hate relationship with his self-righteous
A View of the Woods
mother, with whom he lives while he is attempting to establish
Mr. Fortune is a land-rich, stubborn old man who lives with his
himself after graduating from college. His mother is
daughter and her family on his own land. He hates his son-in-
overweight, with high blood pressure, so he takes her
law and has no use for his daughter's children, except for nine-
downtown on the bus to an exercise class because she is
year-old Mary Fortune, named after his mother. Mary Fortune
fearful of riding alone now that buses are integrated. Smug in
Pitts—who looks like him, is smart like him, and has his
her genteel poverty, she is wearing an ugly new hat. He is
stubborn nature—is his constant companion. The old man has
infuriated by his mother's condescending Southern, ladylike
been periodically selling off acreage, mostly to spite his son-in-
ways and ingrained racism. A black woman who boards the
law, who would prefer to purchase the land himself. Mr. Pitts
bus with a child is wearing the same hat as Julian's mother.
periodically beats Mary Fortune with a belt to get even with his
Julian's mother insists on engaging with the child even though
father-in-law. The child submits stoically to these beatings.
the woman is clearly annoyed by her condescension. They all
When her grandfather asks why she doesn't stand up to her
get off at the same stop, and when Julian's mother tries to give
father, she denies the beatings and says she would kill
the child a penny, the black woman hits her and walks off.
anybody who tried to beat her.
Julian's mother has fallen down, and Julian begins to scold her
harshly, saying she got what she deserved. A few minutes later,
Mr. Fortune's plan to sell a tract of land in front of the house, a
when she has a stroke on the pavement, he begins calling her
move that will block the view of the woods, upsets his family.
"Mamma!" He runs to get help, but his mother is already dead.
Although Mary Fortune takes her father's side and fights with
her grandfather, she is beaten again and blamed by her
parents for putting her grandfather up to the sale. When Mary
Fortune goes to town with her grandfather to close the deal,
she begins wrecking the store of the buyer. Deciding he has

been too lenient, Mr. Fortune takes her home. When he tries to who advises him to leave the door to his home unlatched and
beat her, she viciously attacks him. For a while she has the to stay out of the way. The sheriff intends to catch Star red-
upper hand, but when he gets on top of her, he knocks her handed with the stolen gun. When Thomas gets home,
head against a stone inadvertently killing her. however, he sees she has returned the gun to his desk. He
then tries to sneak it into her bag, but she catches him in the
act, which he denies in front of his mother. Star and Thomas
The Enduring Chill both reach for the gun, and when he wrestles it from her, she
physically attacks him. He then shoots her, but his mother
Asbury gets very ill in New York City and returns to his hated steps in front of Star and ends up getting shot. When the
home in the South because he believes he is about to die. His sheriff arrives, he assumes the two young people conspired to
mother, Mrs. Fox, is a widow who runs a successful dairy farm. kill Thomas's mother all along.
When her son arrives, she calls in the local doctor, although
Asbury has little use for local doctors. Nonetheless, the doctor
takes his blood and keeps coming to check on him. An The Lame Shall Enter First
unsuccessful writer, Asbury has been spoiled by his mother,
whom he blames for his failed aspirations. He is planning to Sheppard is a recreation director and part-time guidance
leave her a letter to read after he dies, forgiving her for stifling counselor at the reformatory, recently widowed, with a 10-
his poetic soul. A water stain on Asbury's ceiling looks like a year-old son named Norton. He believes his son is stupid,
menacing bird. selfish, and mediocre and that his continual grieving for his
mother is another sign of selfishness. Sheppard prefers the
Asbury had worked in his mother's dairy for a short time and highly intelligent 14-year-old delinquent Rufus Johnson. After
attempted to befriend the black dairymen by smoking with working with this boy for a year, Sheppard takes him into his
them and encouraging them to share fresh milk from the same house upon his release from the reformatory. A fundamentalist
glass, which they refuse to do because they are forbidden to Christian who believes he is going to hell, Rufus disrespects
drink the milk. However, Asbury drinks this milk for several Sheppard and comes to hate him for his atheism. While staying
days simply to defy his mother. By the end of the story, the with Sheppard, he breaks into houses, but the police can't
local doctor finally figures out Asbury has undulant fever, a arrest him because they have insufficient evidence.
chronic, but not critical, illness caused by unpasteurized milk.
Upon receiving this news, he believes he experiences a vision Sheppard has bought a telescope for the boys, mostly to
of the Holy Ghost, which begins with the transformation of the interest Johnson in astronomy. After Rufus begins teaching
water stain into a fierce bird descending on him. He realizes he Norton about heaven and hell, the younger boy develops an
must now live a new life "in the face of that purifying terror." interest in looking through the telescope, and one day he tells
his father he has seen his mother. Johnson and Sheppard
continue to argue about God until one day the boy storms out
The Comforts of Home of Sheppard's home for good and is then caught breaking into
a house. Sheppard finally realizes his failure with Rufus and
Thomas is a 35-year-old historian who lives with his widowed neglect of his own son. He vows to make it up to him, but when
mother, whom he loves but who is engaged in "daredevil he goes to the attic to look for Norton, the boy is hanging from
charity," which is "about to wreck the peace of the house." His a beam outside the window, apparently after launching himself
mother has taken it upon herself to mentor a 19-year-old in flight toward his mother.
woman—a petty criminal, nymphomaniac, and compulsive liar.
After the young woman is thrown out of a respectable
boarding house for drunkenness, Thomas's mother takes her Revelation
to live with them. Star, as she calls herself, pretends to commit
suicide because Thomas rejects her. She then steals his dead Mrs. Turpin is a chubby, self-satisfied white woman who thinks
father's gun, presumably for the same purpose, although she is she is a good person and much better than most other people,
simply being melodramatic. Thomas goes to the corrupt sheriff, especially "white trash" and black people. She and her

husband, Claud, are in the doctor's waiting room because

Claud has an ulcerated leg, about which Mrs. Turpin informs Judgement Day
the others in the crowded room. Mrs. Turpin strikes up a
conversation with a refined woman waiting with her college- Tanner, an old, feeble man, has moved to New York City to live
age daughter. As Mrs. Turpin complains about the laziness of with his daughter rather than stay behind and work for a black
her black workers, who now want to "be right up there with the man on whose land he has been squatting. In his hometown of
white folks," a "white-trash woman," by Mrs. Turpin's definition, Corinth, Georgia, he had been living with his black friend
chimes in, agreeing. A racist conversation continues, while the Coleman in a shack they built and making illegal whiskey. When
college-age daughter, who goes to school in the North, the owner of the land demands he run the illegal still for him,
becomes more and more infuriated. She finally throws the Tanner leaves. New York City turns out to be a nightmare for
book she is reading at Mrs. Turpin and physically attacks her. Tanner, however, and he hates living in the cramped quarters
The girl is pulled off the older woman and sedated but not of an apartment. One day he sees a black couple moving in
before she has called her an "old warthog." Mrs. Turpin takes next door. Unaccustomed to integrated housing in New York
this act as a sign and believes it comes from God. When she and not knowing urban ways, Tanner believes the man is from
gets home, she rails against God because she is in the habit of Alabama and tries to strike up a conversation, calling him
showing charity to all people, including so-called "white trash" "Preacher." After Tanner makes a few attempts to befriend the
and black people. She doesn't understand why God would neighbor, using the racist conventions he is accustomed to
single her out for punishment. At the end of the story she has a using in the South, the man, a New York actor, roughs him up
vision of a motley group of people—all classes and colors, from and hurts him, possibly causing a stroke. After a little time
all walks of life, including the freakish and the passes, Tanner decides to go back home to Georgia. One day
lunatic—marching toward heaven and salvation. when his daughter goes shopping, he tries to leave the house,
thinking he will walk to the freight yards and catch a train, but
he falls halfway down the stairs. He is found by the black
Parker's Back couple, but they don't help him or call an ambulance. Later, his
daughter finds him dead, with his face, head, and arms thrust
into the bannister of the stairway. Tanner's daughter, against
O.E. Parker is an itinerant handyman who ends up marrying a
her promise and her father's wishes, buries him in New York.
fundamentalist Christian woman, almost against his natural
However, she feels guilty and has his body disinterred and
inclinations. He is tattooed on most of his body, and he gets
reburied in the South.
tattoos whenever he feels dissatisfied with his life situation. His
wife hates his tattoos, although she has married him and is
now pregnant. Parker is thinking about leaving his coldhearted,
judgmental wife, who is in the habit of threatening him with
damnation if he doesn't change his ways. One day as he is
mowing his employer's hay with a broken-down tractor, it
seems to him as if he is being grabbed by a tree and saved.
During his vision he does in fact crash the tractor into a tree.
The tractor catches fire, which spreads instantaneously to the
tree. Parker leaves the scene and drives to town to get a
tattoo—asking for a picture of God. He chooses a large tattoo
of a stern Byzantine Christ for his back, believing his wife will
not be able to turn away from the image. Instead, when he gets
home, she upbraids him for idolatry and beats him, raising
welts on the face of Christ on his back. While she remains cold
and adamant, he runs out of the house and cries "like a baby,"
leaning against a tree.

Everything That Rises Must Converge Study Guide Story Summaries 14
On the bus Julian's mother begins a conversation with another

c Story Summaries white woman who says of the new black riders, "I come on the
other day and they were thick as fleas—up front and all
through." The comment further infuriates Julian, whose anger
Everything That Rises Must is continually simmering at his mother's struggle to be a

Southern lady without having the financial means to carry it off.
Converge And he is further infuriated when his mother begins to discuss

him and his job selling typewriters. Julian hates her for
"enjoy[ing] the struggle" and thinking "she had won," meaning
Julian has turned out intelligent and good looking, with a future
Summary ahead of him, although he doesn't believe in his future. He is
proud he has not been "blinded by love for her as she was for
Recently graduated from college, Julian lives with his mother
him" and believes he sees her with "complete objectivity."
while he gets himself established. He resents her, although she
has been his sole and constant support since he was a child. When a large, well-dressed black man boards the bus and sits
She, however, feels no resentment toward him, only love and down next to the woman his mother has been talking with, the
pride. In his guilt Julian thinks "he could have stood his lot woman moves away. Julian then sits next to the black man. As
better if she had been selfish ... an old hag who drank and his mother looks at him with reproach, he feels as though "he
screamed at him." He has agreed to take her to a weight- could with pleasure have slapped her as he would have
reduction class downtown. She has high blood pressure and slapped a particularly obnoxious child in his charge." He tries,
must lose 20 pounds. She does not like to ride the bus alone at not for the first time, to get friendly with a black stranger. In a
night since public transportation has been integrated. Julian's show of his lack of prejudice, Julian "tried to strike up an
mother leaves the house wearing a hideous and costly purple acquaintance on the bus with some of the better types ... that
and green hat she recently bought. She takes it off outside, looked like professors or ministers or lawyers," the narrator
saying she will return it to the store, but Julian insists she wear says. Julian fantasizes about how he could annoy his mother
it, saying he likes it but thinking it looks "pathetic." She tells him by bringing home a black woman. But such actions, however
the sales person told her, "You won't meet yourself coming and justified, would get his mother's blood pressure to "rise to
going" in that hat. 300."
Julian dislikes his mother's conservative and racist views of life, After the black man gets off the bus, a large black woman and
which have not changed with current events. She still identifies child board. The child sits next to Julian's mother, and the
with her patrician Southern roots, even though she now lives in woman sits next to Julian, who notices the woman and his
a run-down part of town. "If you know who you are, you can go mother are wearing identical hats. He is elated because "fate
anywhere," she tells her son. The others in her weight- has thrust upon his mother such a lesson." Julian's mother
reduction class are "not our kind of people," but she is gracious smiles at the child, but the black woman gets angry when the
to them. Resenting her condescension and pretense, Julian child begins interacting with this white stranger. At one point
viciously retorts that her classmates "don't give a damn for she snatches the child and slaps him across the leg, telling him
your graciousness," and that she hasn't "the foggiest idea" to behave. Julian's mother remains oblivious to the woman's
where she stands or who she is now. She recalls Julian's great- outrage and continues to play "peek-a-boo" with the child. At
grandfather had "a plantation and two hundred slaves." the next stop both woman and child get off, along with Julian
Nowadays black people should "rise, yes, but on their own side and his mother. As per her usual behavior, Julian's mother
of the fence," she says. The two continue to bicker, and the reaches into her purse to give the child a coin and comes up
narrator notes the mansion of past years his mother with a shiny penny. Julian tries to stop her, but she ignores him
repeatedly talks about remains a strong image in Julian's mind, and presses the coin on the child. The black woman explodes
since he unfavorably compares the squalid living quarters of with rage, hitting Julian's mother, who falls to the ground, and
his childhood with the picture of "threadbare elegance" his shouting, "He don't take nobody's pennies."
mother has painted. She, on the other hand, has easily
adjusted to her change of station. Julian tries to get his mother off the ground, but not before

telling her she got what she deserved. He finally gets her to pride: her Southern heritage, which includes having no qualms
stand up, but she's breathing hard and doesn't seem to know about her grandfather's ownership of 200 slaves. Flannery
him. She walks away and he follows. "That was the whole O'Connor's story takes place in the early 1960s, shortly after
colored race which will no longer take your condescending the buses in the South were integrated, and Julian's mother
pennies," he scolds. Her "old world is gone," he continues, while fears riding alone at night in close proximity to black people.
thinking "bitterly of the house that had been lost for him." He She is a racist, but more immediately, a middle-aged Southern
continues to pursue and harangue his mother as she walks woman clinging to a familiar way of life. That she has no name
quickly. When he finally catches her arm, she says, "Tell and is identified only in relationship to her son casts her as a
Grandpa to come and get me," and he realizes something "type" in O'Connor's fiction—the genteel Southern woman who
terrible has happened. "Mother ... Darling sweetheart, wait!" he wishes to hold on to a culture that is disappearing and who is
says. She crumbles on the pavement while he calls, "Mamma, the loving mother of an ungrateful adult child.
Mamma!" He runs toward some lights to get help, but they drift
into the darkness, as "the tide of darkness seemed to sweep Julian despises her for her nostalgia, but he is a hypocrite in
him back to her, postpone ... his entry into the world of guilt and that he himself longs for the "old plantation" he has never seen,
sorrow." with its "threadbare elegance." He resents having grown up in

"squalid living quarters," in comparison to this idealized
homestead of his mother's childhood. But while she has long
Analysis ago accepted the change in her economic circumstances,
Julian has never done so. She is a widow who has "struggled
Julian and his mother, who is never named, are the fiercely to feed and clothe and put him through school," yet he
protagonists of "Everything That Rises Must Converge," a story thinks of her as "a little girl" he's taking to town. Unlike his
told by a third-person narrator, who sees events from Julian's mother, he is depressed and feels sorry for himself.
perspective. At the end of the story, the narrator steps out of
His mother's old-school white racism infuriates Julian, an
Julian's consciousness to inform readers that Julian is about to
"intellectual" in the fictional catalogue of types found in
enter "a world of guilt and sorrow" because his mother will die
O'Connor's stories. Book learning and acquired values end up
from the stroke, or heart attack, and he is at least partially at
being a flimsy defense against the slings and arrows of
fault. He continues to taunt her after the woman knocks her
ordinary life for these so-called intellectual characters.
down, and at the very least he is existentially responsible for
Moreover, in his intellectual snobbery, Julian believes he has
being glad the black woman punished his mother for her sin of
risen above race prejudice, but in fact he is like his mother,
bigotry. "Don't think that was just an uppity Negro woman," he
except he has covered himself in a veneer of liberalism. The
says. "That was the whole colored race which will no longer
narrator uses objectifying language in explaining how Julian
take your condescending pennies." He calls the angry woman
tries to become friendly with the "better types" of blacks who
his mother's "black double," who can wear the same hat as his
seem more educated than the majority of poor and
mother and look better in it than she does. It's best for his
uneducated African Americans. He fantasizes about bringing
mother to get used to the idea that "the old world is gone."
home a "beautiful suspiciously Negroid woman," but not an
Even as he insists on this corrective, he thinks "bitterly of the
actual black woman. And readers may question whether
house that had been lost to him" and says maliciously, "You
fantasy is Julian's open-mindedness or merely delight in baiting
aren't who you think you are."
his mother. The language of the narrator, however, shows that
But more to the point is that Julian himself is not who he thinks blacks would always be "others" for Julian, and he is not
he is. First, he is angry at his mother for his own helplessness. equipped to go beyond political correctness (a term not yet
He is living with her because he is still unable to establish used in the 1960s) and actually engage with a black person
himself in a job or profession. Instead of being grateful for her without the benefit of a social mask. While his mother also uses
support, which she provided without resentment, she has a mask in dealing with black "others," she never lies to herself
become a constant reminder of his dependence. If Julian had about the nature of such social relations. She has enough self-
some humility, he could acknowledge his debt without feeling knowledge to know her social masks of race and class keep a
diminished. But he suffers from the sin of pride, or excessive desirable distance between herself and the people she is
self-regard. Julian is also angry at his mother for her sin of "othering." If she is smug in claiming she knows who she is, she

is also accurate. Nonetheless, readers may find Julian's mother sympathetic

because she loves her son and more than discharges her
Julian's stream of consciousness is an example of how responsibilities toward him. But she is a self-righteous snob
O'Connor uses verbal irony to indirectly judge and comment on whose hard work and devotion don't mask her flawed
the sinfulness of her protagonist and situational irony to call character. Readers likely will find Julian unsympathetic as an
attention to the difference between what a character believes arrogant and mean-spirited hypocrite. He casts himself in the
versus what is true. In Julian's fantasy, he can't even think of role of defender of racial justice, but the black man he sits next
the mysterious woman he will use to irritate his mother as to on the bus knows what he is up to—which is to congratulate
black, which is why he imagines her as "suspiciously Negroid." himself on his moral righteousness—and thus doesn't give him
In his fantasy he tells his mother he has chosen this woman, the time of day. Thus, Julian, too, is self-righteous and self-
who is "intelligent, dignified, even good, and she's suffered ... congratulatory, but in direct contrast to his mother. Julian
Now persecute us, go ahead and persecute us." O'Connor wants to love the black "other," whom he does not know, yet he
creates situational irony because, based on Julian's internal rejects the mother he does know and who deserves his
monologue in which he refers to "better types" of blacks, the kindness. The lesson he learns is even harsher than the one his
last thing he will do is marry a black woman. His fantasy about mother learns, for he must live with the guilt of her death. And
being persecuted by his mother is also grotesquely humorous despite his posturing and nastiness, he does love his mother,
because he persecutes his mother at the end of the story and as evidenced by his desperate endearments once he realizes
perhaps contributes to her stroke. O'Connor's verbal irony he is about to lose her.
creates a sarcastic and humorous tone, here and in most of
her stories, in which the reader participates with the narrator in Pierre Teilhard de Chardin's words create situational irony in
judging and making fun of the protagonist, even while the story. Julian's mother remains true to herself, annoying and
implicating the reader as no better than the characters in the embarrassing to Julian as she may be, but such truth ends in
story. In fact, "the world of guilt and sorrow" to which Julian is her death rather than higher consciousness. While integration
condemned at the end of the story is the same one in which holds the promise of rising and convergence for previously
the reader lives. suppressed African Americans, society is at the same time
deteriorating rather than evolving. Julian's mother wonders
Even though Julian's mother is not a hypocrite like her son, she what the world is coming to, when the "bottom rail is on the
is punished for demanding that African Americans continue to top." She equates integration with moral decay, and in
wear their old masks of subservience in a new era moving O'Connor's view, race problems are a subset of humanity's
toward racial equality. She allows that black people should general sinfulness. Julian is forced to see, during the moments
"rise," but "on their own side of the fence," exhibiting a typical of his mother's death, his own corruption and hypocrisy, but it
Southern refusal to acknowledge that segregation was at the remains for the reader to decide whether it will be an enduring
root of racial inequality. O'Connor never enters into the lesson that will allow him to rise and converge.
consciousness of a black character, and she frankly admits
she cannot do so because of her ignorance of black people,
claiming she "can only see [them] from the outside. I wouldn't
have the courage of Miss Shirley Ann Grau to go inside their
Greenleaf
heads," she says in a letter published in The Habit of Being.
(Like O'Connor, Grau, born in 1929, was a white novelist who
wrote about evil and explored race relations in the South.) The
Summary
anger of black characters against whites is not often depicted
Mrs. May, a widow who runs a dairy farm, awakens to the
in O'Connor's stories, but in this first story of the collection as
sound of a bull eating underneath her bedroom window. The
well as in the last, angry black characters wreak destruction on
third-person narrator, who stays primarily within Mrs. May's
whites who insist on their maintaining the racial masks of the
consciousness, describes the bull as "silvered in the moonlight
segregationist South. The black woman who wears the same
... his head raised as if he listened—like some patient god come
hat as Julian's mother is indeed her double, and she teaches
down to woo her." Angry to see this strange animal on her
her a harsh lesson that costs the woman her life.
property because he can potentially ruin her dairy stock, Mrs.

May nonetheless decides to wait until morning to approach her surprised and then reveals the twins bought the animal only for
farmhand about the problem. Mr. Greenleaf, lazy and inept, has beef. When he ran away, "they was too tired to run after him."
been working for Mrs. May for 15 years. She has not fired him Mrs. May goes down to the twins' homestead to demand they
because she doubts she can get somebody better, and he has fetch the animal. She finds only a black farmhand and asks him
not left because he is "too shiftless" to find other employment. to deliver the message. He responds that they are likely to
ignore her request, since they have no use for the animal. Mrs.
In the morning, when Mrs. May orders Mr. Greenleaf to pen up May's anger continues to escalate because the twins have
the bull, he tells her it has been on the property for three days. offloaded their problem onto her, for she will have to kill the
The information angers her further because he didn't have bull.
sense enough to tell her immediately. She has worked hard for
many years to make a success of the farm and support her When she returns, Greenleaf offers to drive the bull to his sons'
sons, but they have neither an understanding of her sacrifices place, but Mrs. May says the animal is sure to escape again
nor any gratitude. Nor have they any interest in the farm, even and must be shot. She is disappointed in his boys, whom she
though it is their inheritance. Scofield, an insurance salesman, always treated well when they were children. She tells
is 36, and Wesley, a few years younger, teaches at the Greenleaf they are taking advantage of her because she is a
university. Both sons are single and show little respect for their woman, and he spitefully responds she has two men on the
mother. Scofield exasperates her with his lack of ambition and place. "Some people learn gratitude too late, Mr. Greenleaf,
malicious teasing, but Wesley worries her because he is sickly and some never learning it at all," she retorts.
and hates everything.
The next morning Greenleaf claims the animal is gone. But Mrs.
Mrs. May dislikes the whole Greenleaf family, including May has seen the bull in the pasture. She plans to drive
Greenleaf's large and slovenly wife. Mrs. Greenleaf reads and Greenleaf to where he can run the animal into empty pasture
cuts out newspaper articles about victims of disasters or and shoot him. "Ain't nobody eve ast me to shoot my boys' own
perpetrators of crimes. Then she buries the clippings and bull!" he says, but Mrs. May is adamant. She feels triumphant to
prays over them in the dirt. Mrs. May is revolted by this have won her point. When he reluctantly gets out to chase the
exhibitionist behavior. Indeed Mrs. May is "a good Christian bull, she thinks about how his sons are probably laughing at
woman with a large respect for religion, though she did not, of their father for being upset about having to shoot a useless
course, believe any of it was true." She is bitter because the bull. "If those boys cared a thing about you, Mr. Greenleaf," she
twin sons of the Greenleafs have come up in the world, despite says, "they would have come for that bull."
their parents and poor upbringing. A few years younger than
her sons, the Greenleaf boys fought and were wounded in the Spotting the bull, Greenleaf throws a sharp rock at him, which
war, and both married French women. On their government makes him run farther. Mrs. May drives her car to where
benefits they attended school, bought their own farm, and now Greenleaf is likely in pursuit of the bull and then gets out,
have three children apiece—who speak French. sitting on the front bumper to wait and rest. She closes her
eyes and thinks about how, at any judgment seat, she would be
Scofield informs his mother, somewhat gleefully, the bull able to say, "I've worked hard, I have not wallowed." The
belongs to the Greenleaf twins. This news further angers her. narrator notes that while she is thinking about a lifetime of
She rails at Scofield, saying she has put up with Greenleaf so work, "Mr. Greenleaf was loitering in the woods and Mrs.
her own sons wouldn't have to do dairy work. Wesley then Greenleaf was probably flat on the ground, asleep over her
snaps back, "I wouldn't milk a cow to save your soul from hell." holeful of clippings." Mrs. May once said Greenleaf's wife had
The twins are "fine boys," she responds and "ought to have been warped by religion, which should be practiced in
been my sons" and "you two should have belonged to that moderation.
woman!" (meaning Mrs. Greenleaf).
Finally the bull emerges, galloping across the pasture, his head
Mrs. May then sets off to find Mr. Greenleaf, who has still not lowered and his body racing toward Mrs. May. To her shock,
tried to catch the stray bull. "You needn't think ... I don't know the bull pierces her heart with his horns. On her face "she had
exactly whose bull that is or why you haven't been in any hurry the look of a person whose sight has been suddenly restored
to notify me he is here," she says. Greenleaf pretends to be but who finds the light unbearable." Mr. Greenleaf appears and

shoots the bull four times in the eye. When he gets to Mrs. sons' premature demise.
May, she has tipped over with the bull and seems to be
"whispering some last discovery into the animal's ear." Mrs. May has been putting up with the shiftless, "white trash"
Greenleaf for 15 years. She justifies the situation by claiming
she wouldn't have been able to get anybody else to work for
Analysis her, but that seems a poor excuse. Surely, in such a long
period she could have found a more efficient farmhand.
The bull that gores Mrs. May is loaded with symbolism, from Perhaps she keeps the Greenleafs around because they make
the beginning of the story. The description of the bull—a her feel superior. Mr. Greenleaf's wife is a Southern
patient god that had "come down," presumably from the grotesque—a character found routinely in O'Connor's stories.
heavenly realms, to woo the protagonist—calls to mind the Mrs. Greenleaf has created her own religious ritual, mimicking
Cretan bull of Greek mythology. Pasiphaë, daughter of the sun to some degree the spiritual possessions that took place in
god Helios, fell in love with the Cretan bull after she was Pentecostal Churches of Southern "Holy Rollers." She is large
cursed by the sea god Poseidon. The product of her union with and dirty, rolling around in the dirt, ritually hugging it and
the bull was the Minotaur, whom King Minos, Pasiphaë's symbolically burying herself in it, groveling before God and
husband, keeps locked in a labyrinth. The bull in Flannery praying for lost and troubled souls as she shouts, "Jesus!
O'Connor's story has a hedge-wreath across his horns, leading Jesus!" This behavior, described by the narrator at a sardonic
some critics to the conclusion that the bull represents Christ distance, is comic, for the reader can readily picture the large,
wearing a crown of thorns. However, this interpretation seems sloppy woman groveling in the dirt as she calls on God.
unlikely, especially because O'Connor points the reader in the Nonetheless, Mrs. Greenleaf's profusions are less offensive
direction of Greek mythology. Rather, the bull is Mrs. May's than Mrs. May's atheistic religiosity. In a tone dripping with
nemesis, an animal version of the Lucifer-Trickster who has sarcasm, the narrator notes Mrs. May thinks the word Jesus
come into her life to unmask her. The bull belongs to the "should be kept inside the church building like other words
Greenleaf boys, so he also represents the Greenleaf family, inside the bedroom." This verbal irony pairing worship with sex
with whom Mrs. May has been at odds for 15 years. Mrs. May indicates that Mrs. May regards religious practice as profane.
sees herself as superior to the Greenleafs, so it is not The narrator names Mrs. May as an atheistic Christian, who
surprising for their runaway bull to become the instrument of respects religion but doesn't actually believe it is real or has
her undoing. anything to do with her life. At one point, Mrs. May tells Mr.
Greenleaf his wife has perhaps let religion "warp her," advising
Mrs. May's fatal flaw, as with most of the protagonists in "everything in moderation," which is a humorous thing to say,
O'Connor's stories, is the medieval sin of cupiditas, or egotism, because spiritual practice is not something that can be done in
says literary critic James Andreas, or what nowadays is called moderation, like drinking a glass of wine a few times per week.
narcissism. "O'Connor's whining, self-assertive protagonists" In O'Connor's view, a professed Christian who measures out
distort the world through their "own peculiar prism of faith "with coffee spoons" (as Prufrock in T.S. Eliot's poem
egocentricity," and they stand in for O'Connor's readers, who "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" measured out his life) is
are likewise guilty. Although smug and self-righteous, Mrs. May worse than a professed atheist who at least takes God
is basically a good woman, measured against ordinary secular seriously.
standards, and it is not hard for the reader to sympathize with
her. She is a widow who has taken over the running of a dairy The Greenleafs are also a thorn in Mrs. May's side because
farm and through hard work has made it prosperous enough to their sons have done much better than hers, despite having
put her ungrateful sons through school, much like Julian's been raised by "white trash" parents. Although Scofield served
mother has done. Meanwhile, Scofield, the insurance agent, in the war, he never got past the rank of private, and Wesley's
and Wesley, the anemic intellectual, care nothing for the farm: heart condition kept him out altogether. The Greenleaf boys
"I work and slave, I struggle and sweat to keep this place for became sergeants, married French brides, and received
them and soon as I'm dead, they'll marry trash and ruin government benefits that allowed them to educate themselves.
everything I've done," she thinks. She has even gone as far as They also run a dairy farm and, unlike Mrs. May, have the latest
entailing the property so the imaginary future wives of her equipment. Mrs. May, proud of her own social status, laments
lackadaisical sons will not get their property in the event of her that the Greenleaf boys are on their way to surpassing her and

getting into "society." While Mrs. May is arguing with her sons
at the breakfast table, she reminds them how she has put up
Summary
with Mr. Greenleaf and his clan for their sake, so they wouldn't
Mary Fortune Pitts is the granddaughter of a land-rich 79-year-
have to work on the farm. After Wesley's nasty retort, she
old man, who hates his son-in-law. When the story opens,
metaphorically disowns her boys, consigning them to Mrs.
Fortune and his granddaughter are watching a bulldozer on a
Greenleaf. She also foreshadows her own demise: "When I die
tract of land the old man has recently sold off and that is
... I don't know what's going to become of you."
destined to become a fishing club near the lake. Both man and
The Greenleafs' role as Mrs. May's judge surfaces in the child come every day to watch the digging. The young girl
spiteful remarks made by Mr. Greenleaf, who subtly compares looks just like her grandfather, who thinks she is the "smartest
his boys to hers. When Mrs. May goes to the younger and prettiest child he had ever seen." Mr. Fortune's daughter
Greenleafs' farm and asks their collective six children about and her husband, Mr. Pitts, have seven children, but the old
their fathers' whereabouts, the children remain mute, making man cares only for this child, named after his mother. Although
her feel "as if she were on trial for her life, facing a jury of the family has been living on the Fortune land for a decade,
Greenleafs." Later, when complaining about the Greenleaf and Mrs. Pitts looks after her father, he sells off a piece of land
sons, Mrs. May says, "Some people learn gratitude too late." periodically to show he is still boss. These sales infuriate Mr.
However, the situational irony in the remark applies more to Pitts because he would like to buy the land himself. Mr. Fortune
Mrs. May than the Greenleaf boys, for she herself is ungrateful has left the land in trust to his granddaughter, who he believes
for the blessings from the God she barely believes in. At the has his intelligence, strong will, and drive. He has already sold
end of the story, she is feeling sorry for herself again and off 125 acres of his 800-acre property.
thinks she has a right to be tired, believing that on "any kind of
Mary Fortune ignores her grandfather when he tells her not to
judgement seat, she would be able to say: 'I've worked, I have
walk too close to the edge of the embankment, where she
not wallowed.'" At the same time, she compares herself with
could fall in. The old man admires Mary Fortune's spunk and
Mrs. Greenleaf again, thinking it likely she was wallowing over
never hits her, but he can't prevent her father from whipping
her newspaper clippings at that very moment. Soon after, the
her. Periodically Pitts gets angry for no discernible reason and
bull, goaded by Mr. Greenleaf, kills her.
takes Mary Fortune down the road, beating her around the
At the moment the bull gores her, Mrs. May appears to be ankles with his belt. One day Mr. Fortune watches this beating
upside down, seeing the sky instead of the tree line and having and then berates the child for not fighting back, to which Mary
the look "of a person whose sight has been suddenly restored Fortune replies, "Nobody's ever beat me in my life and if
but finds the light unbearable." In O'Connor's iconography, this anybody did, I'd kill him."
is Mrs. May's moment of truth, her conversion experience.
The old man works out that Pitts gets his revenge on him by
Suddenly she is seeing the world from a different point of view.
beating his favorite granddaughter. To retaliate against Pitts,
Nonetheless, it may be hard for the reader to believe this is a
Mr. Fortune decides to sell a piece of land prized by Pitts—the
moment of redemption. Mrs. May realizes with terrible clarity
area in front of the house called the "lawn," where the children
she is not in charge of her destiny, as greater forces ultimately
play. When the old man tells Mary Fortune of his plan, she
determine her fate. But there is not enough evidence in the
stridently objects. If he sells the lawn, they won't be able to see
story to support the idea that Mrs. May has repented of her
the woods from the porch. Further, this is the area where her
egotism and developed to the point at which she can receive
father grazes his calves. Grandfather and granddaughter argue
God's grace.
vociferously, and Mr. Fortune wishes he could teach her to
stand up to her father the way she stands up to him. In his mind
her submissiveness to her father is cowardice, which he takes
A View of the Woods personally, as if the cowardice belonged to him.
When Mr. Fortune tells the family he is negotiating to sell the

lawn, they are upset. Pitts blames Mary Fortune, who meekly
objects, but her father takes her outside for a beating anyway.
The old man berates his daughter for allowing her husband to

beat "an innocent child," and Mrs. Pitts responds that Mary
Fortune put him up to selling the land, which he denies, calling
Analysis
his daughter a "disgrace." The old man suffers through the
"A View of the Woods" is perhaps the most brutal of the nine
afternoon, feeling as he often does when the child is
stories in this volume, with its chronicle of the violent murder of
beaten—that his heart is getting larger. Nonetheless, he is
a child, who inadvertently becomes her grandfather's nemesis
more determined than ever to sell.
and metes out the wages of his grossly narcissistic sin. The
The next day the old man takes his granddaughter with him to third-person narrator stays mostly with Mr. Fortune throughout
see the buyer, Mr. Tilman. When he comes out of Mr. Tilman's the story. Not surprisingly, however, O'Connor's narrators are
store, Mary Fortune has disappeared, having left with her ambivalent—both despising and loving the fallen characters
father. The old man is angry at the child for giving in to her and cherishing a world that is spiritually blind. Even in this
father when he ordered her into his truck, and Mary Fortune is story, in which Mr. Fortune is small minded in his treatment of
angry with him for selling the land. When she explains to the the family and bestial in the murder of his granddaughter, the
old man again why she is upset, he says she is acting more like reader can't help but feel some sympathy when he
a Pitts than a Fortune. At supper, no one in the family speaks remonstrates, "I'm an old man! ... Leave me alone!" The narrator
to Mr. Fortune. The next day, for the first time, Mary Fortune adds, "But she did not stop. She began a fresh assault on his
does not come into her grandfather's room to wake him up. jaw. "'Stop stop!' he wheezed. 'I'm your grandfather!'"
Nonetheless, he invites her to town to look at the boats in the
The reader may waffle in judging whether Mr. Fortune has real
boat store. Although she consents to go, she continues to give
love for his granddaughter or whether she is merely his
him the cold shoulder, and when he asks why, she brings up
narcissistic project. To ask this question, however, is to raise a
the land sale. Mr. Fortune reminds the girl that her father beats
second, more philosophical question: What is the nature of love
her, so why should she care about his calves? For the third
anyway, and isn't all human love in some form or another
time, she denies anyone beats her. When he asks her if she is a
merely self-love, in which people see a reflection of themselves
"Fortune" or a "Pitts," she responds she is
in the eyes of the other? Mr. Fortune is given many
"Mary—Fortune—Pitts."
opportunities to come down from his high horse and
Before going home, Mr. Fortune stops at Mr. Tilman's store to compromise with his family, but he never does, and the reader
close the land deal. After the papers are signed, the child cannot help but lament the hubris and spiritual blindness that
appears at the door and begins hurling bottles at the two men. have led to tragic consequences.
Her grandfather finally catches her up and puts her in the car,
The unfortunate Mary Fortune ends up as a pawn in a game of
where she sits, "snuffling and heaving." Mr. Fortune is
chess being played by her grandfather against her immediate
astonished, for he has never seen a child behave this way, and
family, particularly her father. Mr. Fortune aligns himself with
she has been his constant companion for nine years. He thinks
the currents of progress—the fallen world in which custom and
he has been too easy on her and is now determined to beat her
tradition are devalued and spirituality has lost its place. Critic
for what she has done. When he takes her to the spot where
Bryan N. Wyatt reads the woods as symbolic of the divine,
Pitts usually punishes her, Mary Fortune turns belligerent, once
particularly, Jesus Christ, while Tilman is a "Luciferian
again saying no one has ever beat her and she will kill anyone
character." The old man allies himself with the destroyers of
who tries. She jumps on her grandfather and begins beating
nature, but his desire to confound his son-in-law is at least as
him ferociously and biting him. By now the two of them are on
strong as his desire to see the town grow and perhaps carry
the ground. She pauses and asks him, "Have you had enough?"
his own name into the future.
When Mr. Fortune looks at her, he sees the child as "PURE
Pitts." He gets hold of her throat, and they reverse positions, so Therefore, because Mary Fortune is his very own "mini-me," he
that he is on top of her. He lifts her head and cracks it against intends to leave her whatever is left of his property when he
the rock, then hits her head against the rock twice more. He dies. He loves her because she looks like him and has his
looks at the still figure for a long time and then falls back, "his personality. Her likeness to him is necessary to fuel his love,
heart expanded ... with a convulsive motion." There is no one to and in his outsized narcissism, the reader perhaps sees the
help him—only the machinery on the side of the road, "gorging magnification of everyday human ego in human relationships,
itself on clay." masquerading as something more refined.

In his favoritism of Mary Fortune, whom he has fashioned into In this moment of reckoning, he cannot reckon with what he
his double, the old man turns the rest of the family against her. has done. Overwhelmed by the events of the day and his
Time and again, he has the opportunity to put his love for the terrible crime, the old man has either a major stroke or heart
child on a higher footing. He is stymied by her submitting to her attack. There is no one to help him and no one to save him. It
father's beatings, which he takes as a personal affront. It seems he has bypassed the grace of God because his
should be easy for Mr. Fortune to see that the child's father is outsized self-love makes redemption impossible.
punishing him through the child. But instead of trying to repair
familial relationships, he doubles down and retaliates against
Pitts by selling off more land. Mr. Fortune is too ignorant to see The Enduring Chill
that Mary Fortune submits to the beatings because it is her
way of acknowledging she belongs to him and the Pitt family. In
saying the beatings never happened, she is telling her
Summary
grandfather they are insignificant because she is her father's
child. Her reasoning is lost on Mr. Fortune, however, who just
When Mrs. Fox meets Asbury's train, he is glad "she sees
keeps haranguing her for giving in. When the "lawn" in front of
death in his face at once." Asbury believes his mother needs
the house becomes a bone of contention and Mr. Fortune sees
"to be introduced to reality," which might "assist her in the
how upset his granddaughter is about its loss, he again has a
process of growing up." He has come from New York City,
chance to back off. The child clearly tells him the family will
where he has been sick for about four months with fever,
lose its view of the woods and her father will be unable to
lethargy, aches, and headaches. Believing he is dying, and
graze his calves. But Mr. Fortune can only focus on how the
having run through his savings, he is returning to his hated
child has aligned herself with her family against him and will not
hometown in the South.
entertain, even for a moment, a change of heart.
Mrs. Fox is a widow who runs a successful dairy farm and has
As Mary Fortune and her grandfather argue over the sale, he
put her children through college. Asbury's sister, Mary George,
becomes increasingly outraged. At one point he demands to
is an elementary school principal, Asbury an unsuccessful
know whether the child is a Fortune or a Pitts, and she
writer. When Mrs. Fox sees how sick her son is, she urges him
responds that her name is "Mary—Fortune—Pitts," to which he
to see the family physician, Dr. Block, but Asbury refuses.
replies, "Well I ... am PURE Fortune." The narrator describes
"What's wrong with me is way beyond Block," he says in a self-
Mary Fortune as defeated after the metaphorical rejection by
pitying voice. In a flashback, he recalls his friend in New York,
her grandfather. This conversation is a turning point, in which
Goetz, who recently returned from studying Buddhism during a
things go from bad to worse. Mary Fortune has been dragged
six-month sojourn in Japan. Counseling his sick friend Asbury
to town to witness the dreaded sale, even though she stays in
to see reality as an illusion, Goetz takes Asbury to a lecture on
the car. She knows what is going on, however, and thus
Vedanta, an Indian philosophy based on this premise. Goetz
smashes up Tilman's shop, an act against the "devil."
asks a Roman Catholic priest who happens to be at the lecture
what he thinks about the idea that salvation does not exist,
Once again, Mr. Fortune has an opportunity to reach beyond
since there is no one to be saved. The priest answers there is
his own narcissism to connect with his granddaughter, who has
the probability of a "New Man" emerging, "assisted, of course ...
been sent over the edge by the sale of the lawn. Instead he
by the Third Person of the Trinity," and he gives Asbury his
decides it is his turn to beat her, and because he has both
card.
repudiated her (I am pure Fortune) and betrayed her, she turns
on him like a force of nature. She will not be beaten by this man
Returning to the present time, Mrs. Fox assumes her son is
who is not her father, and he recognizes nothing of himself
about to have a nervous breakdown and thinks manual labor
when she looks up at him. Indeed, he sees he has been
might be a good prescription for avoiding it. The previous year
defeated by "PURE Pitts." In a rage he kills Mary Fortune by
she had allowed him to work in the dairy when he was "writing
knocking her head, not once, but three times, against a stone
a play about Negroes." Unbeknownst to her, he tried to
until she is dead. "The eyes had rolled back down and were set
become pals with the two black dairymen, Randall and Morgan,
in a fixed glare that did not take him in," the narrator says, even
telling them "the world is changing." He succeeded in getting
as the old man says, "This ought to teach you a good lesson."

them to share a cigarette with him, even though smoking was meaningful experience for himself" before dying and asks for
not allowed in the dairy, but they refused to share a glass of the two black dairymen. He plans to smoke a last cigarette
milk, which was also forbidden. Nonetheless, he continued to with them. However, when they get there, Randall
drink the milk himself over the next several days until he finally misunderstands his offer of the open pack of cigarettes,
returned to New York. thinking he is simply giving it to him. Asbury perceives the
mistake and gives an unopened pack to Morgan. The two men
Before leaving New York this time, Asbury destroyed leave, and Asbury, disappointed, gives his mother the key to his
everything he had ever written—novels, plays, poems, and desk drawer where he has stashed the notebooks in an
stories. However, he still has the letter he wrote to his mother, envelope. He instructs her to open the package when he dies.
which fills two notebooks. He means for her to read it after his
death, in which he forgives her "for all she had done to him." He Asbury dozes and is awakened by a visit from Dr. Block, who
left home to escape its slavish atmosphere, he says, and find triumphantly tells him and Mrs. Fox he has found the cause of
freedom. He blames his mother for killing his creativity from an Asbury's problem: undulant fever—a recurring, chronic, but not
early age. Now he tells his mother he is home for good. life-threatening, illness caused by drinking unpasteurized milk.
Afterward, when he is alone, Asbury pockets the key his
There are water stains on the walls and ceiling of Asbury's mother has left on the bedside table. He feels his old life is
bedroom, and the one above his head looks like "a fierce bird over, and he awaits his new life. Just then he feels a strange
with spread wings." The bird appears to have an icicle in its chill, and "the fierce bird which through the years of childhood
beak and some more icicles hanging from its wings. The stain and the days of his illness has been poised over his head,
has been there since he was a child and had frightened him waiting mysteriously, appeared all at once to be in motion." The
then, for it "had the illusion that it was in motion and about to narrator says, "the last film of illusion was torn," and Asbury
descend mysteriously and set the icicle on his head." Asbury sees he will live from now on "in the face of a purifying terror."
comforts himself with the thought that soon he won't have to He lets out a feeble cry of protest, but the Holy Ghost,
look at it. "emblazoned in ice instead of fire, continued, implacable, to
descend."
Despite her son's protests, Mrs. Fox calls in Dr. Block. Although
Asbury is rude to the doctor, he submits to the examination
and even allows Dr. Block to take blood. As Asbury gets worse
over the next few days, Mrs. Fox decides he needs some
Analysis
intellectual conversation and offers to invite the Methodist
This story is written from an omniscient, third-person
minister. Asbury refuses and instead asks for a Jesuit priest,
perspective, although the narrator stays primarily in the
remembering the one he met in New York. He thinks a Jesuit
consciousness of Asbury and Mrs. Fox.
will be a man of culture, and a visit from a priest will also annoy
his Methodist mother. One day after the doctor leaves, Asbury In "The Enduring Chill," the white liberal and intellectual
overhears his sister say he got sick because he can't write. He protagonist is punished for his hubris and moral posturing,
agrees: "He had failed his god, Art, but he had been a faithful when he insists on drinking unpasteurized milk in defiance of
servant and Art was sending him Death." his mother. This story ends relatively happily, in comparison
with the other stories in the collection, which is partially why its
When the priest arrives, he advises Asbury to pray to Jesus,
sardonic humor is so successful.
ignoring his attempt to initiate an intellectual dialogue. The
priest begins catechizing Asbury, with questions like "Who is Asbury shares literary DNA with Julian of "Everything That
God," to which Asbury provides secular answers. Speaking at Rises Must Converge." Both men have benefited from the hard
cross purposes, the two barely hear each other. The priest work and competence of a widowed mother. Mrs. Fox is
scolds Asbury, admonishing him to ask God to send him the shocked by Asbury's illness when she meets him at the train
Holy Ghost so he will not suffer eternal damnation. Mrs. Fox station, but when the doctor cannot immediately discern what
finally asks the priest to leave when she overhears their is wrong with him, she thinks her son might be on the verge of
conversation. a nervous breakdown. She managed to get her two children
through college after her husband died, although she
The next day Asbury feels an urgent need to have "some last

"observed that the more education they got, the less they their "Negro" masks when he urges them to drink the milk.
could do." While her daughter, Mary George, is successful Moreover, they side with his mother, the white oppressor in
enough, her son has shaped up to be a failed writer. Asbury's view, against this disingenuous liberator who has
come from the North to write about them.
But neither son nor daughter is a likable character, although
the bickering between them is slyly funny: "If she were in any Asbury unfairly blames his mother for his lack of talent.
way attractive ... she wouldn't now be principal of a county O'Connor deliberately draws a parallel between the secular
elementary school, and Mary George had said that if Asbury Catholic novelist, James Joyce, who shed his Christianity to
had had any talent, he would by now have published spread his literary wings, and Asbury, who attempts to replace
something." When the siblings arrive at the house, Mary Christian belief with the Indian philosophy of Vedanta. He
George, knowing of her brother's dislike of the South, says, convinces himself he has gained the detachment toward death
"The artist arrives at the gas chamber." Later Mary George advised by Eastern philosophers, who also teach the individual
tells her mother to face reality: "Asbury can't write so he gets self is simply an illusion. In fact, Asbury refashions the Eastern
sick. He's going to be an invalid instead of an artist." She also notion of dissolving the ego in the service of a higher wisdom
opines that a few shock treatments might do him some good. to shore up his own fragile ego. Asbury thinks he is having a
moment of mystical clarity when he thinks Art is sending him
Mrs. Fox is wrong about the benefits of manual labor, however, death in exchange for his faithful service, but this is one more
because the last time Asbury helped out in the dairy, in his delusion. Moreover, this delusion foreshadows the final
ignorance he drank unpasteurized milk, the cause of his delusion at the end of the story. His sister, Mary George,
current illness. Asbury sees himself as racially righteous, and correctly predicts "he's going to be around here for the next
his vision of himself as a liberal-minded intellectual is why he fifty years as a decoration."
began "writing a play about the Negro" and wanted to observe
them in their milieu and discover "how they really felt about Unlike James Joyce, however, Asbury becomes more bound by
their condition," as the narrator sarcastically observes. rejecting his Christian faith. When he summons the Jesuit
However, Asbury has no awareness of his own condescension country priest, who has never heard of James Joyce and is not
in studying the black dairymen as if they were zoo animals. about to engage in idle philosophical chatter, Asbury becomes
Neither does he seem conscious that, because of their history even more mired in self-delusion. The exchange between the
of segregation and oppression, the black farmhands would find agnostic and the orthodox priest is O'Connor at a comedic
it impossible to suddenly drop their masks before a white height. The priest, who has never heard of James Joyce,
outsider and have an honest conversation with him. advises Asbury to pray to the Holy Ghost so that "you can see
yourself as you are—a lazy ignorant conceited youth!" Thinking
In his attempt to cross the racial barrier, Asbury insists they he is on his deathbed, Asbury has another comic interchange
have a moment of racial communion, first by sharing cigarettes with the black dairymen whom he calls to his room to share a
and then by sharing glasses of milk. Asbury incorrectly last cigarette. The men keep telling him how good he looks and
assumes the dairymen refuse to join him in this ritual because misunderstand his desire to share a smoke with them—thinking
they are intimidated by his mother, who forbids drinking the he is merely giving away free cigarettes. After Asbury tells the
unpasteurized milk. Although defiant enough to smoke with dairymen he is going to die, Randall says "You looks fine," and
Asbury, they were savvy enough not to drink the milk—and sly Morgan predicts, "You be up and around in a few days."
enough not to warn him about the dangers. In a private
conversation between the two men, Morgan asks Randall, While some critics read the last part of the story as a spiritual
"How come you let him drink all that milk every day?" Randall epiphany, it may be more likely that Asbury is experiencing just
answers, "What he do is him ... What I do is me." Then Morgan one more delusion, triggered by undulant fever and fed by the
asks, "How come he talks so ugly about his ma?" Randall conversation with the priest. At first Asbury looks at himself in
replies, "Because she ain't whup him enough when he was the mirror, but he turns away in shock and stares out the
little." This honest exchange is comic in the light of Asbury's window, seeing "a blinding red-gold sun" moving "serenely from
self-righteousness. The dairymen have played a wicked trick under a purple cloud." In O'Connor's iconography the sun is
on him, simply by failing to challenge his erroneous associated with Jesus Christ, and this seems a moment filled
assumptions and remaining impassive and noncommittal in with redemptive possibility. The tree line is black under the

crimson sky, the narrator says, and forms "a brittle wall, "pure idiot mystery" powered by forces outside his control. He
standing as if it were the frail defense he had set up in his mind believes his mother suffers from an "excess of virtue." In
to protect him from what was coming." Just then he feels a Thomas's view, Christian history proves that "a moderation of
chill, and a "fierce bird" metamorphoses from the water stain good produces likewise a moderation of evil." He believes in
on the ceiling. The Holy Ghost descends in ice while Asbury virtue as an ordering principle that makes life bearable, but
sees "the last film of illusion ... torn as if by a whirlwind from his when it gets out of hand, as it does with his mother, he feels
eyes. He saw that for the rest of his days, frail, racked, but the presence of invisible devils nearby.
enduring, he would live in the face of a purifying terror."
The next part of the story is told as a flashback. Thomas's
Critics who read the ending as an epiphany also fault O'Connor mother first sees the girl's picture in the newspaper after she
for the heavy-handedness of this revelation. But it is more likely has been jailed for passing a bad check. Because the
that Asbury, when presented with the opportunity to see miscreant is only 19 and does not look like a bad girl, Thomas's
himself "in the mirror," simply turns away from painful self- mother decides to take her a box of candy. When she comes
examination. He is desperate for an epiphany or a back from the jail, Thomas's mother reveals a few details about
transcendent moment, so he manufactures one from the the girl's tragic and sordid life. The young woman calls herself
priest's words and his fever. He sees the rest of his days as a Star Drake, although her real name is Sarah Ham. Thomas is
kind of purgatory in which he will be forced to live. But a real sorry his father is not alive, for although he hated his father, the
epiphany likely would have involved abandoning his posturing old man would not have allowed his mother to engage in
and self-importance and taking responsibility for his failed life. foolish charity. One way or another, he would have gotten rid
The Holy Ghost coming as ice instead of fire is an important of the girl, perhaps by pulling strings with local law
clue that Asbury's vision is false because the Holy Ghost enforcement to move her to the state penitentiary.
always is associated with fire—fire melting the hearts of the
recalcitrant, burning away impurity, enlightening the spiritual Thomas's mother later finds out from Star's lawyer that Star is
mind, and so forth. Therefore, Asbury's Holy Ghost is likely just a pathological liar and most of her story is untrue, but this
another iteration of his self-delusion. news makes the older woman only feel sorrier for her. Star has
been to several psychiatrists, who have been unable to help
her. The lawyer gets Star paroled and released into the older
The Comforts of Home woman's custody. She gets Star a job in a pet store and a
place to board. Thomas is aghast at his mother's activities,
especially after she brings Star to the house for dinner and
Star begins flirting with him. Thomas knows immediately he is
Summary "in the presence of the very stuff of corruption, but blameless
corruption because there was no responsible faculty behind it."
Thomas, a 35-year-old historian who lives with his charitable-
When he drives Star home at his mother's request, the young
minded mother, is enraged at her friendship with a young
woman makes sexual advances, which he repulses.
woman whom he considers a "little slut" and an unrepentant
criminal. Now "his mother, with her daredevil charity, was about At breakfast the next morning, he tells his mother the girl is
to wreck the peace of the house," the narrator says. The promiscuous and had made fun of her behind her back. This
previous night the girl had come into his room, and he chased news doesn't change his mother's desire to save Star from
her out, holding a chair in front of him "like an animal trainer herself. She reminds her son he's had "all the comforts of
driving out a dangerous cat." He tells his mother he won't put home. And morals ... No bad inclinations, nothing bad you were
up with it and will leave the house if the girl stays. His mother born with." However, she agrees not to invite the girl again. Still,
tells him the girl can't help herself because she is a Thomas is shaken, "as if he had seen a tornado pass ... and had
"nimpermaniac," whom Thomas sees merely as a "moral an intimation that it would turn again and head directly for him."
moron."
A few days later, the woman boarding Star kicks her out for
Thomas loves his mother, the narrator says, but he sometimes drunkenness, and Thomas's mother must pick her up. Star is
cannot "endure her love for him," which often seems to be supposed to stay at Thomas's house for only one night but

ends up staying for eight days, and continues to sexually mother's love of good without her tendency to pursue it."
harass him. Star responds to Thomas's rejection and loathing Nonetheless, he either loses his reason or acquires his father's
by threatening to kill herself, and one night she stages a fake ruthlessness, as he fires the weapon that kills his mother.
suicide attempt, barely damaging her arm with a superficial cut.
The next day his mother demands Thomas lock up his father's In this story the reader meets still another widowed matriarch
gun, which he keeps in a drawer in his room. He refuses, taking care of an "intellectual" adult child. Two mothers of
knowing Star has no intention of killing herself. Nonetheless, ungrateful children—Mrs. May in "Greenleaf" and Mrs. Fox in
the gun is missing when he next goes to look for it. At "The Enduring Chill"—are dairy farmers (like Flanner
breakfast he gives his mother an ultimatum: either she gets rid O'Connor's mother, Regina Cline O'Connor), and both cope
of the girl or he will move out of the house, but by afternoon with ungrateful sons. Julian's widowed mother in "Everything
both have returned, which is where the reader first encounters That Rises Must Converge" dies as a result of aggressive
them at the beginning of the story. action taken by her son to punish her social behavior. Similarly,
Thomas, in this story, kills his mother, albeit accidentally, to
In present time, Thomas hears his father's voice in his head, punish her private behavior: exaggerated charity, as he sees
telling him to go to the sheriff. He knows the sheriff is corrupt it—favoring someone else over him. Like the first story in the
but approaches him anyway, telling him the girl took his gun. collection, the protagonist's mother is not named and thus
The sheriff advises him to go home and stay out of the way. At appears to be more an archetype than a fully realized portrait.
6 p.m. he will come by the house to take Star into custody and The difference between Julian and Thomas, however, is that
tells Thomas to leave the door unlatched. When Thomas gets Julian does not acknowledge his love for and dependence on
home, he sees Star has put the gun back in the drawer. She is his mother until the end, whereas Thomas has a history of
upstairs taking a bath, so he removes the gun and puts it in her loving and depending on his mother. Yet when she fails to meet
purse. Unfortunately, Star comes down in time to catch him in his expectations, he kills her.
the act, just as his mother wakes up from a nap. Star tells
Thomas's mother what he has done, but Thomas denies his O'Connor plays with time in this story, opening in the middle of
action, shouting, "The dirty criminal slut stole my gun." The two their disagreement, which has come to a crisis. The flashback
reach for the gun, and Thomas gets it first. Star then lunges at reveals, however, that until Star Drake (a.k.a. Sarah Ham)
Thomas's throat, but his mother gets in front of her, to protect showed up, mother and son lived in harmony. Thomas's mother
her. At this point, Thomas hears the voice of his father again, has broken her promise to shelter Star for only one night. After
telling him to fire, and he does. But the person he shoots is his Star has been in Thomas's home for several days and has
mother, who now lies dead on the floor. The sheriff arrives, accosted him in his bedroom, Thomas gives his mother an
instantly deciding the pair are in cahoots and had planned to ultimatum. Thomas sometimes cannot endure his mother's love
kill Thomas's mother all along. The sheriff "was accustomed to for him, the narrator says, because it is excessive, just like her
enter upon scenes that were not as bad as he hoped to find extreme Christian charity, which results in her bringing an
them, but this one met his expectations," the narrator says at unrepentant sociopath under her roof. In his view, Christian
the end of the story. history advises moderation in goodness, which is more likely to
produce moderation of evil. This logic doesn't hold up though,
because evil doesn't necessarily evolve from goodness, and it
Analysis is not logical to assume that more charity will produce more
evil rather than less.
In "The Comforts of Home" the Lucifer-Trickster, or tempter,
In The Habit of Being, O'Connor comments on this story, saying
appears as a voice in the protagonist's head—specifically, his
no one is redeemed at the end. She also says Thomas's
aggressive and merciless father, who accuses him of not being
mother holds the "right position," and "the one who is right is
man enough to take care of his business and control his
usually the victim." Her radical charity closely follows the
mother at home. Thomas's father is dead, but he is resurrected
teachings of Jesus, although one critic, Walter Sullivan, sees
as the poisonous voice in his son's head. As a result, the mild-
the woman's charitable gesture as self-serving. There is no real
mannered and previously righteous Thomas ends up killing his
evidence of the mother's selfishness in the story, however, and
beloved mother. Thomas is said by the narrator to have
she keeps thinking about how Star could be one of her
"inherited his father's reason without his ruthlessness and his

children. She tries to enlist Thomas's support in rehabilitating meant to shoot Star: "The blast was like a sound meant to
Star by saying she has not had the advantages her son has bring an end to evil in the world. Thomas heard it as a sound
had: "Think of the poor girl ... with nothing ... And we have that would shatter the laughter of sluts." Thomas's great sin is
everything." She is not deterred when Thomas informs her Star to believe too strongly in his own righteousness and confuse
thinks of her as a relic of the past and an old windbag. his need to restore the equilibrium in his life with his fabricated
Thomas's mother does not expect gratitude, and she is obligation to "bring an end to evil in the world." Neither he nor
following Jesus's teaching to "take up your cross and follow any other human being has the power to end evil, and the best
me." However, the question remains whether she has a greater he can do is not add to it. Because of his egotism, Thomas
responsibility to her son than to Star. Taking in the sociopathic leaves the side of the angels and joins the dark forces in the
girl wreaks havoc on his life, and perhaps she does not have world.
the right to insist he also take up the cross.
Thomas's test comes with the problem his mother brings into
the house. He considers himself a good man and recognizes
The Lame Shall Enter First
Star as a malignant innocent, someone who doesn't know she
is bad and who can't control her behavior. While Star hasn't yet
done anything shockingly evil, she has the capacity to do so.
Summary
What is the responsibility of moral persons to such human
Sheppard, a recreational director and part-time guidance
beings? Thomas asked himself "what the attitude of God was
counselor at the reformatory, watches his 10-year-old son,
to this, meaning if possible to adopt it." But to think he can
Norton, prepare a breakfast of peanut butter, ketchup, and
adopt the attitude of God toward a sociopath shows he
chocolate cake. Recently widowed, Sheppard has little
overestimates himself and is suffering from the sin of pride.
patience for his son, whom he considers selfish and ordinary.
Thomas exhibits moral laziness in addition to pride. If he had Norton's mother, Sheppard's wife, died more than a year ago,
made good on his threat to leave the house, he would have and the boy still is grieving. Sheppard views Norton's grief as a
avoided a confrontation with Star and the shooting of his manifestation of selfishness and self-indulgence. Sheppard
mother. But he is unwilling to sacrifice "the comforts of home" also dislikes the boy's entrepreneurial spirit: he sells seeds and
to challenge his mother's position with maturity. No doubt she saves his profits of nickels and dimes in quart jars. Sheppard
understands her son well enough to know he is unlikely to prefers 14-year-old Rufus Johnson over his son. Rufus is a
make good on his threat. But if he had taken a different highly intelligent delinquent with a club foot whom Sheppard
position, he could have either forced his mother's hand or at has been working with for the past year. Recently released
least waited out her experiment with Star. Instead, he from the reformatory, Rufus is living on the streets and eating
resurrects his immoral and aggressive father to help him deal out of garbage cans.
with the problem—by going to a corrupt sheriff to help him get
Sheppard lectures Norton about charity and how fortunate the
Star out of the house. When his plan backfires, he lies to his
boy is in comparison to someone like Rufus, with a grandfather
mother about planting the gun. "The dirty criminal slut stole my
who beats him and a mother in the penitentiary. Norton
gun!" he says, and his mother blanches to hear that other
responds tearfully that at least he'd be able to see her if she
voice—his father—in her son's tone.
were in jail and then begins to howl. Sheppard informs his son
The narrator says Thomas snatches the gun from Star, and he has given Johnson a key to the house and intends to take
when she goes for his throat, his mother throws herself him in to live with them. He thinks Rufus has "a capacity for real
forward to protect her. But why would she attempt to protect response," unlike his own son, and has "been deprived of
Star when the one in danger is her son? The most likely everything from birth."
answer is that she sees her son has become his father, and
The narrator inserts flashbacks of Sheppard's conversations
she anticipates he will shoot the girl. Thus, in an ultimate act of
with Johnson at the reformatory, in which the counselor
sacrifice, she puts her body between Star and her son. Does
perceived "a kind of fanatic intelligence ... palpable in his face."
he shoot his mother unconsciously—perhaps because he is
Johnson has told Sheppard he gets into trouble because Satan
angry with her for taking Star's side? The narrator implies he

has him in his power. Sheppard considers this stance to be did believe in Jesus, and Johnson then allows she is "on high ...
rubbish and religious superstition, a belief unworthy of in the sky somewhere." He promises to tell Norton more about
someone as smart as Johnson. He has attempted to free him heaven and hell later.
of wrong thinking through weekly counseling and now hopes to
get him off the street. He would like to get him fitted for a new The next day Sheppard can that tell the two boys have made
orthopedic shoe and expose him to new ideas. He could buy a friends and that Johnson has been feeding his son religious
second-hand telescope and spark an interest in space travel in superstition. He determines his child is too mediocre to be
the boy. "What was wasted on Norton would cause Johnson to damaged, and belief in heaven and hell is for the mediocre
flourish," he thinks. anyway. That evening he finds his son alone in the attic with
the telescope, although he previously showed no interest.
That afternoon, Johnson uses the key and meets Norton for Johnson has disappeared, but he soon turns up in the hands of
the first time. "He's been expecting you," Norton says, adding a police officer who says he broke into a house around the
that Sheppard plans "to give you a new shoe because you eat corner and smashed it up. The boy is taken away, and
out of garbage cans!" The older boy orders the younger one Sheppard thinks a night at the police station might do him
around, insults the maid, and calls Sheppard stupid. "Yaketty good. The next day the police book a black man for the break-
yaketty yak ... and never says a thing," Johnson observes. in, and Sheppard apologizes to Rufus for misjudging him.
Norton defends his father, who is good and helps people, but
Johnson says, "He ain't right!" When Johnson explores the A few days later, the police return about another break-in, and
house, he enters the master bedroom where Sheppard no this time Sheppard defends Rufus, saying he was at the movies
longer sleeps and rifles through Norton's dead mother's things. with Norton. In fact, the boys were at the movies. Sheppard
Upset, Norton yells at Johnson, "Take your big fat dirty hands later asks Johnson if he left the movie. Johnson plays on
off my mother's clothes!" a command Johnson ignores. Sheppard's guilt, claiming he has no confidence or trust in him.
Sheppard backs off and claims he does believe him. "You don't
When Sheppard gets home, he is delighted to find Johnson, want to steal and smash up things when you've got everything
immersed in a volume of the Encyclopedia Britannica. you want already," the boy says, which Sheppard interprets as
Sheppard questions Rufus about his grandfather, who has gratitude from someone who has seemed impervious until now.
gone off on a religious mission, which means Rufus has The next day, they go to the orthopedic store to pick up the
nowhere to go and can stay with him. He tells Johnson he shoe for which Rufus has been fitted. Although it fits him and
needs his help in teaching his own son how to share. On his allows him to walk almost normally, he takes if off and refuses
part, Norton tells his father what Johnson has got up to that to wear it. Sheppard interprets this behavior as insecurity, fear
afternoon, but his father is not impressed, saying he intends to of gratitude, and difficulty in coming to terms with a new self.
help Rufus, and his insults are beside the point. After the boys That night a police officer returns about another break-in, and
are alone, Johnson says to Norton, "God kid ... how can you Sheppard shouts at him, telling him to stop persecuting Rufus.
stand it? ... He thinks he's Jesus Christ!" After the officer leaves, Johnson implies he has lied to the
police, and Sheppard insists he is stronger than Johnson,
In the second part of the story, Sheppard makes up his wife's whom he is going to save. Johnson, however, confesses to all
old bedroom, over the objections of his son. He sends the two three break-ins. When Sheppard remains adamant about
boys to the local Y to swim. The two boys don't fight, but they saving him, Johnson responds, "Nobody can save me but
don't quite make friends. Sheppard buys a telescope and sets Jesus."
it up in the attic, and for a while he interests Johnson in looking
at the moon and stars. Johnson continues to act bored and The next morning Sheppard must admit he has failed in his
belligerent, although Sheppard believes he is making progress. compassion and wants the boy to leave. While Johnson looks
They continue to argue about religion. Johnson says he's going at him as though he were a moral leper, he knows "he had
to hell, and Norton becomes alarmed when Rufus describes a nothing to reproach himself with." He wishes he were in the
place of eternal suffering. He asks his father if his mother is in house alone again, with his own child. In the afternoon he finds
hell, and Sheppard responds she isn't anywhere. Norton then the two boys in the living room, reading a bible Johnson has
asks Rufus the same question, and he says only if she was evil stolen. At dinner Sheppard gets into an argument with Rufus,
or didn't believe in Jesus. Norton responds she was good and telling him the Bible is for cowards, to which Rufus replies that

Satan has Sheppard in his power. Sheppard taunts him, and you live long enough, you'll go to hell." Thus, Norton has
the boy rips out a page and chews it to prove his faith. assumed he will join his mother in heaven if he kills himself.
When Sheppard looks for Norton, he finds him with the Critic Shirley Foster writes that O'Connor's short stories are an
telescope. He says he's found his mother, but Sheppard says "assault on the reader." They depict "brutality, physical abuse,
the telescope reveals only star clusters. Norton insists, murder, and betrayal perpetrated by characters who are often
however, his mother has waved to him. Sheppard sends his termed 'grotesques'—physical freaks, idiots and maniacs."
son to bed, and he now sees two police officers coming up the They are striking not only because of their internal violence but
walk with Johnson, who claims he's been deliberately caught because of the violence they inflict on the reader. The
"to show up that big tin Jesus." Johnson rails at him, calling him shocking events are narrated from a deliberate distance in a
a "dirty atheist," and as the police drag him off, he shouts, "the mocking tone, which exploits the reader's preconceptions and
lame'll carry off the prey!" Sheppard sits down to consider, then shatters them. That is, the reader does not expect the
again determining he has nothing for which to reproach characters to be punished so severely, and in that sense,
himself. But then he remembers Norton and finally realizes how O'Connor implicates readers as sinners who expect to get
he has neglected him. He feels a repulsion for himself and "a away with their own misdeeds. She also demonstrates in her
rush of agonizing love for the child ... The little boy's face stories how people live with a false sense of security, never
appeared to him transformed; the image of his salvation; all thinking about how disaster may befall them at any moment
light." Planning to be both father and mother to the boy, he and completely shatter their lives. Death is the ultimate
rushes upstairs, but Norton is not in bed. He rushes up to the disaster in life, but even worse is the disaster that may await
attic, finds the telescope toppled, and sees his child "hung in the unredeemed in the next life, according to O'Connor's
the jungle of shadows, just below the beam from which he had theology. Readers are implicated here as well, since the author
launched his flight into space." implies they are as naive as her characters—thinking they will
live forever, never having to face the divine music—that is, the
consequences. Thus, the author manipulates the audience,
Analysis who may end up feeling cheated or victimized by her "mocking
tyranny," which she holds up to the reader like a mirror.
This story is the longest in the collection as well as the longest
of Flannery O'Connor's stories, and it is shocking in a similar Most readers demand a "redemptive act" from fiction, and
way as "A View of the Woods" because an innocent child dies, O'Connor forces the reader to pay a high price for redemption
a sacrificial lamb for the sins of the protagonist. Norton, the 10- when it occurs in her stories—and it does not always occur.
year-old son of Sheppard, commits suicide as a result of his O'Connor uses dramatic irony to establish complicity between
father's neglect and strident disbelief. By the time Norton has the reader and narrator, in which readers feel as though they
killed himself, Sheppard has already repented, but too late for know what the narrator is up to and how the story will turn out.
either himself or his son. It is difficult for the reader to accept But then the denouement shatters expectations. Thus,
the deaths of innocent children, but in O'Connor's religious O'Connor pulls the rug from under the reader in the same way
world view, these children are old enough to understand sin as her hapless characters get their comeuppance.
and even commit it. Young Norton commits suicide, a mortal Nonetheless, the reader cannot accuse the author of
sin according to Catholic dogma, which if not repented and exaggerating the evil in the world, for the terrible things that
atoned earns the sinner an eternal sentence in hell. Does happen in her stories are familiar to all—even if only from
O'Connor expect Catholic readers to assume the child is newspaper stories. Life is not fair, as anyone is bound to admit.
eternally damned? There's no easy answer to this question. Whether a person believes in a vengeful god, the spirit of fierce
Norton knows little or nothing about religion except what Rufus grace, karma, or the machinations of a random universe, it
Johnson has taught him. Moreover, it could be argued that seems undeniable that the innocent are often punished along
Norton was following Johnson's demonical teachings and with the guilty.
cannot be held responsible as a suicide. When Norton first
The "Sheppard" of this story is no shepherd. On the contrary,
asks Johnson if he'll go to hell, where his mother is, Johnson
he is likely to lead his sheep over a cliff. "The lame'll carry off
establishes that Norton's mother, if she was righteous, is in
the prey!" shouted by the demonic prophet Rufus Johnson, a
heaven. He continues, "Right now you'd go where she is ... but if

grotesque with a club foot, paraphrases a verse from the opening scene Sheppard sees his son as a "stocky blond boy"
Hebrew Bible and is related to the New Testament verse, "the stuffing himself with chocolate cake, to which he has added
meek shall inherit the earth." In both verses the unassuming ketchup and peanut butter. In the same scene, he ends up
and humble are most pleasing to God and will be rewarded. throwing up this mess. The description is not loving, and in fact
Although Rufus is lame, he is hardly meek, and neither is borders on Sheppard's contempt, if not revulsion. Yet Norton's
Sheppard. They are doubles, both steeped in sin. The culinary inventiveness is partly Sheppard's doing, for Norton
difference is that Rufus knows he is sinful and needs to be does mention the cake is stale and needs some doctoring, the
saved, whereas Sheppard repudiates Christian dogma as a lie implication being the kitchen needs attention. Nothing in the
perpetrated on the ignorant. Johnson's grotesque club foot story indicates Norton is stupid or selfish, yet his father
represents his state of fallenness, which is why he does not persists in believing these things about him. Sheppard takes
want Sheppard to fix him. He embraces his sinfulness and tells his entrepreneurial initiative—evidenced in selling seeds and
Sheppard if he gets around to wanting to be saved, it will be collecting the money in jars—as a sign of greed, but Norton is
Jesus that saves him, not Sheppard's social work. Sheppard's not a greedy child. Sheppard's contempt may simply be the
grotesquerie is not physical, but rather psychological and mid-century liberal-minded intellectual's antipathy toward
emotional, in the way he rejects and neglects his flesh and business over social service. When Johnson enters the picture,
blood, the son he is responsible for, in favor of a stranger upon Norton has no difficulty sharing his home with him—apart from
whom he forces his attention. Johnson cannot be called a his objections to Johnson's desecrating his mother's room.
Lucifer-Trickster, because Sheppard chooses him, not vice- Sheppard also accuses his son of lacking finer feelings, yet he
versa. The boy has a demonic aspect, however, even though has been suffering terrible grief over the death of his mother,
he also is a prophet, like some of the Old Testament prophets which Sheppard calls "selfishness" and which Sheppard
who warned of death and destruction. In his demonic aspect, refuses to address. As a counselor interested in helping young
he delivers terrible punishment, but he is also the occasion for people with problems, it may be difficult to understand why he
Sheppard to realize his hubris, self-delusion, and selfishness. hasn't looked around and seen his son struggling so
Thus, the demonic Johnson is also a channel for receiving desperately.
fierce grace.
It is unclear why Sheppard would feel such contempt for his
An atheist and secular humanist, Sheppard believes religion is own child, but he most likely invests in Rufus Johnson to puff
the opiate of the people, and that scientists, social engineers, up his own pride. He puts himself in the place of a priest when
psychologists, and progressive thinking can save the world. He he thinks about how his sessions with Rufus have an aspect of
works as a recreational director, but his heart is in his part-time the confessional. And he dares to take on the role of the
counseling job, where he first meets Johnson and takes him on creator in attempting to mold Rufus into his own image. In fact,
as a project. Another of O'Connor's misguided intellectuals, he deludes himself into thinking he is making an impression on
Sheppard is dazzled by Johnson's IQ and thinks intelligence Rufus, even though he never does.
makes a person more valuable to society and more worthy of
resources and attention than ordinary people. In attaching Unlike Sheppard, Norton is loyal—to his mother, to his father,
himself to Johnson, Sheppard also elevates himself as the and even to Rufus Johnson, as he gradually accepts him.
teacher and mentor of this highly intelligent child, and he takes Norton defends his father when Johnson calls him names,
it as his duty to quash his religious superstitions. But Johnson saying he is a good man. But Johnson opines, "I don't care if
is stronger and cleverer than Sheppard. Consequently, when he's good or not. He ain't right! Although Johnson is a lot bigger
he enters the house as a second son—but really as a than Norton, Norton defends the memory of his mother, telling
replacement for the one Sheppard views with contempt—he the older boy to take his hands off her stuff. When Sheppard,
becomes Norton's surrogate father, and he teaches Sheppard completely oblivious to Norton's feelings, installs Johnson in
the wages of sin. the old bedroom, the interloper both literally and symbolically
takes the place of Norton's mother. He tells Norton about
Although Sheppard does not view Johnson as grotesque, he Jesus and heaven and hell, and Norton begins looking for his
does view Norton that way. Seeing Norton from Sheppard's mother through the telescope. After some lessons in theology,
perspective, the narrator writes that one of the boy's eyes Norton begs Johnson to repent, because he doesn't want him
"listed, almost imperceptibly, toward the outer rim." In the to go to hell. When Sheppard realizes Johnson is filling

Norton's head with fundamentalist Christianity, he is not While Mrs. Turpin and the stylish lady are making small talk, the
worried, thinking someone as dull as his son might need the college girl begins to smirk. The stylish lady steers the
crutch of religious belief. conversation away from Mrs. Turpin's racist remarks, asking
about the Turpins' farm, but Mrs. Turpin returns to the theme
Convincing Rufus of the futility of belief, however, is something of her black workers, continuing to call them "niggers" and
that still interests him. As Norton is continually sidelined by his complaining about how she has to butter them up—for
father and it becomes apparent Rufus Johnson will be moving example by running out with a bucket of ice water to drink.
on, the boy turns to the only person, albeit dead, who has ever
loved him. He kills himself with the idea of joining his mother in The "white-trash woman" continues to interject her own racist
the afterlife. The "big tin Jesus" has finally been brought to heel comments into this discussion. The college girl snaps her teeth
by Rufus Johnson, and Sheppard finally confesses to himself and looks at Mrs. Turpin with loathing, while an inane
that his project has been a complete failure. At first, he insists discussion continues about whether it would be possible to
he has "nothing to reproach himself for," but he finally admits send black people back to Africa.
what he has done to Norton. He plans to make everything up to
him and ensure that he will "never let him suffer again," but by The stylish lady asks the "white-trashy woman" about her boy.
the time he gets up to the attic, Norton is beyond his She answers that he has an ulcer and won't eat anything but
ministrations. soda and candy. Mrs. Turpin thinks that's a poor

excuse—probably she hasn't tried very hard to feed the boy
better. Meanwhile, the college girl continues to glare at Mrs.
Revelation Turpin, who can't understand the reason for such an attitude.
To breach her hostility, Mrs. Turpin asks the girl what she is
reading, but the girl ignores her. The stylish lady tells Mrs.
Turpin her daughter attends Wellesley College in
Summary Massachusetts.
Mrs. Turpin enters a doctor's crowded waiting room, The conversation continues, with Mrs. Turpin indirectly
accompanying her mild-mannered husband, Claud Turpin, who criticizing the "white-trashy" woman, who interjects opinions
has come for treatment for an ulcerated leg, the result of that contradict Mrs. Turpin's. The stylish lady indirectly
having been kicked by a cow. Mrs. Turpin is a large, middle- criticizes her daughter, saying there are children who get
aged, loquacious woman with many opinions about everything. everything from their parents but never say a kind word to
She begins speaking to a friendly "stylish lady" there with her anyone and criticize and complain all day long. Mrs. Turpin
college-age daughter, a heavy-set girl of about 18, with an thinks about how she is grateful for the station in life God has
acne-covered face. The girl is reading a book called Human granted her. She remarks, "When I think who all I could have
Development. Mrs. Turpin has taken in the room and made been besides myself and what all I got, a little of everything,
judgments about its size, conditions—how it would be if she and a good disposition besides, I just feel like shouting, 'Thank
were in charge—and the people in it. She notes a "white trashy" you, Jesus!'" When she emphatically repeats the last phrase,
family there: Mrs. Turpin has no use for such people. the Wellesley student hurls her book at her, hitting her above
the left eye. She then attacks Mrs. Turpin and tries to choke
While observing and making judgments, class-conscious Mrs.
her, until the nurse and doctor, rushing in upon hearing the
Turpin, the narrator reveals, has night thoughts about naming
commotion, pull her off the woman. Mrs. Turpin asks the girl,
classes of people. For example, at the bottom of the heap are
"What you got to say to me?" She retorts, "Go back to hell
"colored people," then "white-trash," then "home-and-land
where you came from, you old wart hog. The doctor then
owners," the class to which she belongs, and then people with
sedates the girl, and she is taken to a hospital.
a lot of money and much bigger houses. Nonetheless, some of
these people are "common," and some refined people had lost The Turpins return home exhausted and lie down to rest. Claud
their money, while some black people own their own homes quickly falls asleep, but Mrs. Turpin keeps picturing a warthog
and land and are even professionals. When she gets this far, and saying tearfully to herself she is not one. Nonetheless, she
she generally falls asleep. feels she has clearly been singled out for a message. The

couple get up in late afternoon to tend to the farmhands. Mrs. chooses to converse with a well-dressed and seemingly
Turpin takes them the usual bucket of ice water with a dipper. educated woman, whom the narrator calls the "stylish lady."
When an old black woman sees the lump on her head and asks Mrs. Turpin's snobbery and judgmental attitude are practically
what happened, Mrs. Turpin tells her the whole story, even transparent as the conversation unfolds. It is clear to the
saying the girl called a warthog. The farm women tell her she is stylish lady and her daughter, as well as to the "white trash"
the sweetest white lady they know and "pretty as you can be." woman, that Mrs. Turpin is judging them all and weighing her
Mrs. Turpin gets even angrier, knowing "exactly how much own worth against theirs. This is why the "white trash" woman
Negro flattery was worth." keeps jumping in to criticize black people, intending to make it
clear she has more in common with Mrs. Turpin and the stylish
She then goes down the road to the well-kept pig pen, a lady than she does with the black people Mrs. Turpin berates.
square of sloped, fenced-in concrete. She grabs the hose from In identifying with their whiteness, this poor woman of a lower
her husband so that he can take the farmhands home. As she class can feel superior to the underclass of African Americans.
washes down the hogs, she continues to rail at God: "It's no Yet she defends her own poverty as well by showing her
trash around here, black or white, that I haven't given to." In a disdain for raising hogs, perhaps to bring Ruby Turpin down a
final surge of fury she asks, "Who do you think you are?" peg. In Flannery's O'Connor's inimitable ear for language, the
Across the road she sees the crimson sky, a cotton field, and woman expresses her sentiments about hogs as "one thang I
her husband's tiny truck on the highway, looking like a child's don't want ... nasty stinking things, a-gruntin and a-rootin all
toy. "Then like a monumental statue coming to life, she bent over the place." Judgmental Mrs. Turpin observes to herself
her head slowly and gazed, as if through the very heart of that her hogs are cleaner than the woman's child.
mystery, down into the pig parlor at the hogs," settled around
the sow. When Mrs. Turpin lifts her head, she sees a "visionary The specificity of Mrs. Turpin's hierarchy is humorously
light ... as a vast swinging bridge extending upward from the delineated in her recollection of the thoughts before she falls
earth through a field of living fire. Upon it a vast horde of souls asleep, when all the classes of people are named but then
were rumbling toward heaven." Among them were "whole begin to meld together. The narrator says they were "moiling
companies of white-trash ... bands of black niggers in white- and roiling around in her head, and she would dream they were
robes, and battalions of freaks and lunatics shouting and all crammed together in a box car, being ridden off to be put in
clapping." Behind these people she sees people like herself a gas oven." This semiconscious vision is both amusing and
and Claud, marching with the others, but "she could see by alarming. Mrs. Turpin has heard of the Nazi concentration
their shocked and altered faces that even their virtues had camps during World War II in which Jews and other
been burned away." As night descends, Mrs. Turpin hears undesirables were exterminated. It is common for people in a
"voices of the souls climbing upward into the starry field and dream or semi-dream state to mix things together, especially
shouting hallelujah." thoughts that might seem highly inappropriate to the conscious
mind. But there is another aspect to this dream-vision: human
hierarchies based on the idea that some people are worth
Analysis more than others eventually leads to a fascist ideology. Such
human classifications dehumanize groups of people and make
Told in the third-person from Ruby Turpin's viewpoint, this them expendable.
story may be the funniest and probably the most optimistic in
the collection. It is the only one in which the reader is privy to As Mrs. Turpin sits in the doctor's office, she revels in her
the protagonist's conversion experience and subsequent privileged status. On the one hand, she thanks God she was
grace-filled vision. Ruby Turpin is a practicing Christian and lucky enough to be born white in a country that discriminates
passably good woman, but she is full of unjustified pride in the against blacks, and lucky to have had the means to become
gifts God has given her. For this reason, her nemesis arrives to prosperous. Acknowledging the gratitude she owes God would
provide her with a larger perspective. seem to foster humility and the realization that her good
fortune is not something for which she can take credit. Yet she
Through the sardonic distance of the narrator, a comedy plays does take credit for it. She brags to herself about what a good
out in the doctor's office, in which Ruby Turpin first judges the Christian she is, and she unconsciously assumes she has been
relative worth of everyone waiting for the doctor and then given a relatively easy life by God because she somehow

deserves it. The Wellesley student is disgusted by Mrs. Turpin's truck might smash into it." Next, she looks down into the pig
racial and class bigotry, but what precipitates her losing parlor and sees the sow selflessly nursing her young. Finally,
control and throwing the book are Ruby's litanies of "thank she looks across the road and sees a vision of humanity
you" to Jesus. In that moment the student sees the singing God's praises and making their way to Paradise. The
grotesqueness of her presumption—that she (Mrs. Turpin) is way O'Connor describes this vision is both poetic and
better than other people, which is why God has been good to humorous, which is why it does not seem strained or overly
her. People like Mrs. Turpin are apt to exaggerate their good pious. Ruby sees that people like her are not at the front of the
deeds and charity, thinking God is blessing them for their good parade but bringing up the rear, most likely because they have
works. But even for the religiously inclined, this is nothing less less humility than those without "a little of everything and the
than magical thinking to assure themselves that misfortune will God-given wit to use it right." Earlier she alluded to God's
not arbitrarily rain down on them. Clearly, good things happen putting "the bottom rail on top," but now she understands that
to bad people, and it is the worst kind of hubris for a person, this view is the only one that can be right. In this vision Ruby
particularly a person of faith, to think they have been granted Turpin has received God's grace, but no doubt it will take the
special favors because they are especially good. rest of her life to assimilate what she has been privileged to
see. At least she is on her way and traveling in the right
In fact, Mrs. Turpin is a woman of faith, and she takes the girl's direction.
pronouncement as a message from God. In some part of her
mind she remembers she is a sinner who thinks entirely too
much of herself. Her conversation with the black field hands, in
which they disingenuously reassure her she is the best person
Parker's Back
ever and undeserving of such treatment at the hands of the
young woman, provides the opportunity for more humorous
dialogue. The reader and the narrator share in the pleasure of
Summary
the farmhands' humorous, fake reassurances: "She sho
O.E. Parker's wife is snapping beans on the front porch. The
shouldn't said nothin ugly to you ... You so sweet. You the
woman is plain, with gray eyes "sharp like the points of two
sweetest lady I know." A second woman says, "She pretty too,"
icepicks." Parker thinks he married her because he couldn't
while the first woman adds she never "knowed no sweeter
have her any other way, but he is ashamed he has stayed with
white lady. That's the truth befo' Jesus ... Amen! You des as
her, especially because she is pregnant, and "pregnant women
sweet and pretty as you can be." These words, especially from
were not his favorite kind." Suspicious and judgmental, his wife
people she has been recently berating in the doctor's office,
is "forever sniffing up sin." He is puzzled equally about why he
make Mrs. Turpin feel even more that something is amiss.
married her and she him.
As the day progresses, Mrs. Turpin begins to fight with God in
In a long flashback, the reader learns Parker met his wife when
her mind, asking him why he has visited a pummeling on her,
his truck broke down and he pretended to hurt his hand so he
since she is undeserving of such treatment. This monologue
could get a glimpse of the woman watching him from a nearby
addressed to God is quite comic, as she insists she is not a
house. When she came out to help him, she noticed a tattoo on
warthog. "I could quit working and take it easy and be filthy,"
his hand and turned away with disdain. Parker had found that
she says. Or she could lounge around on the sidewalks
women like tattoos, so he didn't believe this young woman was
drinking root beer and dipping snuff. "Occasionally she raised
any different. His body art reaches from his hands to his
her fist and made a small stabbing motion over her chest as if
elbows. In fact, the front of his body is almost completely
she was defending her innocence to invisible guests who were
covered in tattoos.
like the comforters of Job, reasonable-seeming but wrong," the
narrator says, alluding to faithful Job of the Bible who is tested
Parker first became fascinated with body art after seeing "a
by God.
man in a fair, tattooed from head to foot." Parker quit school at
age 16, worked sporadically, mostly for money to buy tattoos,
At the end of the story, Ruby Turpin is directly answered by
and then joined the navy. He continued to pick up tattoos in
God. First, she sees her husband's tiny truck on the highway,
various ports of call, not especially concerned about the
looking like a child's toy, and she realizes how easily "a bigger

subject, so long as the tattoo was colorful. The overall effect brawl, which gets him thrown out in the street. In the alley he
was something "haphazard and botched," thus leading him to sees his soul "as a spider web of facts and lies that were not at
get additional tattoos. Dishonorably discharged from the navy all important to him but which appeared to be necessary in
after five years, he moved to the country, rented a shack, and spite of his opinion." The eyes on his back are to be obeyed, he
worked at odd jobs. thinks. Previously he has obeyed other such instinctual
commands—first when he saw the tattoo artist, then when he
Parker began courting the young woman after their first joined the navy, and finally when he married Sarah Ruth. He
encounter by bringing her hungry family apples and other fruit. thinks she will know what he has to do now, and at least she
When she asked what the O.E. of his name stood for, he told will be pleased with the tattoo.
her after she promised never to tell a soul. He has kept his
name, Obadiah Elihue, a secret, except from the navy. Her When he gets home, his wife has barred the door against him.
name is Sarah Ruth Cates, and her father is a Gospel preacher. She finally opens it when he says his entire name, Obadiah
Elihue. She begins to scold him about his tractor accident, but
Marriage makes Parker gloomy, and he keeps thinking about he is more intent on her looking at his tattoo, so he takes off
leaving his wife. He continues to get tattoos when his emotions his shirt and turns to her. Instead of being moved, she calls his
become overwhelming, but his back is still a blank. Sarah Ruth tattoo idolatry. "I can put up with lies and vanity but I don't want
refuses to look at his tattoos. "Except in total darkness, she no idolator in this house!" she screams, as she hits him with a
preferred Parker dressed and with his sleeves rolled down." broom on his shoulders and back, creating large welts on the
She nags him on a regular basis about "the judgement seat of face of the tattooed Christ. He staggers up after the beating
God" and how he needs to change his ways. and goes outside. When Sarah Ruth looks out the door, "her
eyes hardened still more." Her husband is "leaning against the
Parker has taken on work with an elderly woman. One day as
tree, crying like a baby."
he is baling hay, he has a vision while thinking about a suitable
tattoo for his back. He is making circles with the broken-down
tractor around the woman's prized tree, and at one point the
sun seems to appear both in front and behind him. He then
Analysis
feels the tree reach out and grab him. He lands on his back,
Told in third-person narration from Parker's perspective,
and the tractor crashes into the tree and bursts into flame. He
"Parker's Back" is the only story in the collection that makes a
himself has been thrown right out of his shoes and escapes
specific statement about the prejudice of some Protestant
harm. He quickly scrambles to his own truck and drives into the
sects against emblems, images, and icons of God with which
city without thinking why but knowing "there had been a great
Catholics and Eastern Orthodox Christians are comfortable.
change in his life, a leap forward into a worse unknown, and
Groups opposed to images of God believe them idolatrous
that there was nothing he could do about it."
because they encourage the worshipper to confuse the image
Parker ends up at his favorite tattoo parlor and tells the artist with the spirit it represents. In this story, however, Flannery
he wants a tattoo of God on his back. From a large book, he O'Connor turns the tables on a narrow-minded Gospel
chooses "the haloed head of a flat stern Byzantine Christ with preacher's daughter, who comes up short on compassion and
all-demanding eyes." The artist must do the intricate tattoo in is unable to get past her own prejudices to recognize her
two sittings, so Parker spends the night at a Christian Mission. husband's true conversion experience.
In bed he replays the sensation of the tree reaching out to grab
O.E. Parker, who has a biblical name he rejects until he meets
him and feels as if the image on his back were telling him "GO
his wife, has been living a degraded life. Yet he has a
BACK." When he returns to the tattoo artist, who asks him
presentiment of something higher in life to which he should
about his choice of image, he says his wife is saved. The artist
aspire. Parker is unaware he is looking for transcendence, but
asks if he thinks his wife will like it, and Parker responds, "She
this existential longing is what draws him in when he first sees
can't say she don't like the looks of God."
the tattooed man. The tattoos represent the possibility of
When the artist finishes, Parker heads to the local pool hall, getting beyond the dreariness of his life, and so he continues
which he frequents when he is in town. His cronies make him to tattoo his body. He also finds the tattoos attract women.
show his new tattoo and tease him about it until he begins a Sarah Ruth Cates, however, presents a challenge to him, and

he wishes to conquer her with his body art. He is unable to do Parker has found an avenue for transcendence, something he
so, and yet he can't bring himself to leave her. Like the man has been looking for his whole life, and the reader might
from the fair, Sarah represents the possibility of a higher type expect his devout wife to recognize the change in him. He no
of life, although Parker is not consciously aware he was longer wants to dominate Sarah Ruth and instead is hoping to
attracted to her for that reason. find a partner in Christ. But when he gets home and solemnly
shows his tattoo to his wife, she rejects him as an idolator,
In his book of criticism, Flannery O'Connor and the Christ- declaring, "God don't look like that!" When he says it's just a
Haunted South, Ralph C. Wood emphasizes the author's picture of God, she gets even angrier and begins beating him.
admiration for Jesus-obsessed fundamentalists. Yet she did By the end of the story Parker has become a Christ-like figure
not agree with their "denial of the sacramental presence of himself, having to endure not only the beating but also the pain
God in the natural order, whether in artistic creation or in the of estrangement caused by his unimaginative and unforgiving
created cosmos itself," he writes. For a Catholic, divine grace is wife. While the story begins with the hubris of the godless
always mediated through a human or natural agency, and protagonist, his conversion experience changes his outlook. By
O'Connor claimed that for Protestants, "Grace and nature don't the end of the story, he exchanges places with his seemingly
have much to do with each other." Sarah Ruth is extreme in her devout wife, who has too much pride in her own limited
rejection of temporal representations of God, which is why she righteousness to realize her husband is a changed man and
insists on a civil wedding. She will not look at her husband, may be able to teach her a thing or two about God.
insisting he undress in the dark. Nonetheless, Parker gets the
idea of tattooing a Bible verse somewhere on his body, still
thinking he can win her over to his "sacramental" imagination.
While he is daydreaming about a new tattoo, he has an
Judgement Day
accident that he interprets as a sign from God. The burning
tree seems akin to the burning bush through which God spoke
to Moses on Mount Sinai. Parker is miraculously saved, and his
Summary
religious change of heart is shown when the narrator says, "If
An old man living in New York City against his will, Tanner lives
he had known how to cross himself he would have done it."
in an apartment with his daughter and her husband. He is
Because tattoos have been his only tenuous connection to the
looking through a window that faces a brick wall and down into
sacramental, he immediately goes to his favorite tattoo artist to
an alleyway. In his pocket is a note that reads if he is found
get a tattoo of Jesus inked on his back.
dead, he should be shipped to Coleman Parrum in Corinth,
While he doesn't admit to his friends or even to himself that he Georgia. Tanner is conserving his energy to sneak out of the
has been through a conversion experience, he now wants a house, planning to walk and then "trust the Almighty to get him
tattoo that will please his wife. His attitude toward her has also the rest of the way." He imagines he can hail a taxi to the
changed. He no longer is thinking of her as an annoying freight yards and get on a southbound train. His daughter
presence always holding him back but rather as someone to promised to bury him in the South, but he has overheard her
offer him guidance. The tattoo he picks is a Byzantine Christ, tell her husband she plans to bury him in New York City. When
the Pantocrator, or Lord of the Universe. His choice of an he confronts her, she avoids the issue by saying, "You ain't
Eastern icon is significant, for these images are designed to dead yet!" He threatens she'll burn in hell for not following his
maximize the possibility that the "divine reality might emanate wishes.
from them," Wood says. Parker tells the tattoo artist he is
In a flashback the reader learns Tanner's daughter found him
getting the image to please his wife. When his drinking buddies
living in a broken-down shack in Corinth with an "old Negro"
at the bar tease him about getting religion, he begins to fight
named Coleman, who had been cooking for Tanner, cutting his
with them and gets thrown out into the street. Although Parker
firewood, and emptying his waste. "That no-good scoundrel
denies his conversion, he has committed to it. His sinful past is
has been on my hands for thirty years." he says. Tanner agreed
no match for "a lifetime discipleship to Christ," Wood says.
to go back North with her only because he learned during her
O'Connor's narrator, knowing Parker's thoughts, says, "The
visit that he and Coleman were squatting on property that now
eyes that were now forever on his back were eyes to be
belongs to Dr. Foley, a mixed-race man. He was planning to
obeyed."

kick them off the land unless they agreed to run their still for believe in God. But the old man doesn't believe him. "And you
him. Stills in the South, in which corn mash was turned into ain't black ... And I ain't white," he answers. The black stranger
whiskey, were illegal businesses. Tanner didn't want to work roughs him up, injuring him before shoving him back into his
for Foley because he is considered black, and the government daughter's apartment. While Tanner is recovering, he begins to
"ain't got around yet to forcing the white folks to work for the imagine being shipped home, where Coleman and another
colored." Tanner thus agrees reluctantly to leave with his friend, Hooten, meet the train. They have borrowed a mule and
daughter. wagon to carry his corpse in its pine box. He scratches on the
lid, however, and when they open it, Tanner springs out and
Tanner first met Coleman many years before, when he was yells, "Don't you two fools know it's Judgement Day?"
supervising six black men at a sawmill. Coleman showed up
one day at the sawmill, encouraging Tanner's men to slack off, Once again in the present, Tanner's daughter says she's going
in his view, because of Coleman's own idleness. Coleman is to the store. She is gentle with her father, while he apologizes
twice Tanner's size, but Tanner confronts him with teasing insincerely for causing trouble with the neighbor. "It's great to
humor, calling him "Preacher" and asking why he is hanging have you here," his daughter says, "I wouldn't have you any
around. This is the beginning of their relationship. In Coleman's other place." After she leaves, he creeps out of the apartment
view, "You make a monkey out of one of them and he jumps on and falls down half a flight of stairs. Stuck on the stairs, he falls
your back and stays there for life, but let one make a monkey into a reverie in which he returns to his daydream with
out of you and all you can do is kill him or disappear." Coleman and Hooten. In the meantime, the couple from next
door come upon him and hear his murmuring about judgment
When the narrator returns to the present, Tanner's daughter is day. He addresses the man as "Preacher" and asks him to help
attempting to cheer him up, telling him he needs an outlet and him up because he is on his way home.
suggesting he "watch TV" for inspiration rather than think
about "morbid stuff, death and hell and judgement." At the When his daughter returns, she finds him on the stairs, "his hat
same time, he is thinking that if he had known he'd be looking ... over his face and his head and arms thrust between the
out of a window all day in "this no-place," he would have been spokes of the banister" and his feet dangling "over the stairwell
"a nigger's white nigger any day," running the still for the like those of a man in the stocks." When the police come to
doctor. release him, they say he has been dead for about an hour.
Although the daughter buries him in New York City, her
The narrator then inserts another flashback of Tanner's arrival conscience haunts her until she has him disinterred and
in New York. The first thing he learns is that his daughter lives shipped to Corinth to be buried at home.
in a "pigeon-hutch of a building, with all stripes of foreigner."
After three weeks, a black couple moves into the apartment
next door. His daughter tells him to stay away from the Analysis
neighbors. "Up here everybody minds their own business and
everybody gets along," she says, to which he retorts, "I was In the last story of the collection, told mostly from Tanner's
getting along with niggers before you were born." perspective, Flannery O'Connor revisits the first story she ever
wrote, "The Geranium," another tale about a white man longing
Because he believes the black man is from South Alabama,
to return to the South and the old relations between black and
Tanner pursues him and tries to initiate a friendship. He first
white, which have been forever sundered in the Civil Rights era.
addresses the man as "Preacher," saying, "I reckon you wish
Like the first story in this collection, "Everything That Rises
you were back in South Alabama." The man becomes angry,
Must Converge," the racist character suffers at the hands of an
but Tanner continues, asking him if he might know where there
angry black person who no longer wishes to assume the racial
is a pond close by. The neighbor finally informs Tanner he is
mask required by white people who would keep them in their
from New York City and is an actor, not a preacher. The next
two-dimensional place.
time Tanner tries to engage the neighbor, the enraged man
says, "I don't take no crap ... off no wool-hat red-neck son-of-a- Tanner ends up coming North with his daughter because of
bitch peckerwood old bastard like you." He again informs what he considers his "white privilege."
Tanner he is not a preacher or even a Christian and doesn't

Everything That Rises Must Converge Study Guide Quotes 36
Although he is broken down, poor, and living with a black man neighbor is aware of this protocol. Nonetheless, the black man
in a shack, his whiteness gives him an honor that puts him makes it clear he is an actor, not a preacher, and is offended
above Dr. Foley, a mixed-race black man. For this reason, by Tanner. Tanner, however, sees himself simply as being
although it would be mutually convenient for him to stay on the natural with this man, with whom he would like to make friends.
property and share some of his whiskey profits, Tanner upends He would like to turn him into a substitute for Coleman, even
his life to move into a "rabbit hutch" in an unfamiliar city. Living suggesting they find a watering hole in which to go fishing.
in New York for Tanner is like living on the moon. In an instance Tanner's innocent attempts to befriend the man according to
of situational irony, his daughter objects to her father's living the Southern mores and manners he has been practicing
with a black man in the South, yet the tenants in her apartment throughout his life are bound to end in disaster. The angry
building are multiracial. But the ways of the North are different, actor beats him, perhaps causing a stroke, but Tanner still
and Tanner's daughter finds nothing amiss in living in close doesn't take a hint. After he decides to get back to Georgia,
proximity with people who are not white. Another contradiction Tanner speaks to the man again, and this time the man finishes
in Tanner is that he never considered anything wrong with him off. The old ways are no more, O'Connor implies.
living with his black friend Coleman for 30 years, whereas
working for Dr. Foley would have been an affront to his sense While Coleman could have served as a vehicle of
of racial privilege. Furthermore, in their 30-year relationship the transcendence for Tanner—in that he could have moved
black-white divide has not been breached, for Coleman serves beyond the stereotypical relations between the races by
Tanner, at least in Tanner's eyes. allowing Coleman to go without his mask—he lets that moment
pass. Nonetheless, the relationship he has with Coleman has
In a flashback the reader learns Tanner and Coleman became been his closest intimacy for 30 years. "Judgement Day"
friends by practicing forbearance in their initial encounter. That comes for Tanner when the black actor chooses his own mask
is, Tanner remembers he thought about killing Coleman, which to wear, vis-à-vis Tanner—a murderous persona who no longer
he could have done with impunity in the South, but he was will allow Tanner to claim white privilege. The actor sends
always squeamish for religious reasons about killing people. Tanner to his permanent home, and it is up to readers to
Coleman, on the other hand, knew he could easily kill the sickly decide what to make of that.
white man. Both men restrained themselves. Tanner
humorously fashions from tree bark a pair of lens-less eye
glasses that Coleman puts on, and the two of them engage in a
g Quotes
kind of masquerade in which both men stand down. "Coleman
used the glasses to see another man fundamentally akin to
himself," critic Ralph C. Wood says, while "Tanner insisted that "It gave him a certain satisfaction
Coleman must see him as a white man who could still
command his servitude." In their moment of connection, the to see injustice in daily operation."
two men recognize each other as equally human, but then
Tanner insists they resume their previous master-slave — Narrator, Everything That Rises Must Converge
relationship, meaning Coleman is the subservient partner. Still,
in the odd manner of the South, this relationship endures, and
The narrator makes this remark about Julian, after he lowers
Tanner finds he is missing his old friend. If he had an
his paper to watch what will happen when a large black man
opportunity for a redo, he realizes, he would have stayed in the
gets on the bus. The story takes place shortly after buses in
South and worked for a black man. Now he is miserable, old,
the South were integrated, and many white people are
helpless, and immobile in a city he despises.
uncomfortable because they have to sit next to African
When a desperately homesick Tanner encounters the black Americans. In this instance, a woman gets up and moves when
neighbors next door, he immediately assumes the man is from the black passenger sits down. Julian is a self-righteous liberal
South Alabama. However, the neighbor says he is not and who incorrectly thinks he has freed himself from racial
wants nothing to do with Tanner. Tanner addresses him as prejudice. He likes to watch these small injustices—such as
"Preacher," a term of respect in lieu of "Mr.," given to certain how the white woman moves when the black man sits
black men by white Southerners. It is unclear whether the down—because it makes him feel superior.

— Mary Fortune, A View of the Woods

"That was the whole colored race
which will no longer take your Mary Fortune is talking to her grandfather, Mr. Fortune. Until
condescending pennies." now, the nine-year-old and her grandfather have been
extremely close, and he takes her everywhere. He loves her
because she looks like him and has a similar personality. But
— Julian, Everything That Rises Must Converge
she becomes furious with him when he insists on selling off a
piece of his land on which her family is living. The sale will take
Julian makes this remark after an angry black woman knocks away their view of the woods and a large area for play and
his mother down for offering her little boy a penny. Julian is cattle grazing. She stands up for the family because they are
smug and ostensibly liberal, believing he has moved beyond old upset about it. Mr. Fortune tries to jolly her out of her mood by
Southern ways, but his mother has not. He is angry with her giving her some spending money, but she is having none of it.
condescending manner and her actions coming from within the
bubble of white privilege. Julian wants his mother to
understand that what has happened to her is more than an
"'This ought to teach you a good
individual incident. It is indicative of a movement against old
attitudes. While not only "condescending," she and others like lesson,' he said in a voice edged
her are in fact "descending," while blacks are rising.
with doubt."
— Mr. Fortune, A View of the Woods

"She was a good Christian woman
with a large respect for religion, Mr. Fortune has just killed his granddaughter, Mary Fortune, by
though she did not, of course, slamming her head against a rock three times. He tried to beat
her because she tore up the store of the man to whom he sold
believe any of it was true." the family's land. However, she will not take his whipping
docilely as she does with her father. Instead, she attacks him
— Narrator, Greenleaf viciously, and he eventually gets the best of her. He doesn't
immediately realize he has killed her because that was not his
intention.
The narrator is describing the protagonist, Mrs. May, who runs
a dairy farm and sees herself as far superior to the lower-class
white family of the man she employs. She is particularly
appalled by Mrs. Greenleaf, who has fashioned her own version "His mother, at the age of sixty,
of a holy-roller type of religion, in which she cuts newspaper
was going to be introduced to
clippings of tragic events, buries them, and then rolls around in
the dirt praying for the unfortunate victims and perpetrators. reality."
Mrs. May finds these religious practices grotesque because
she thinks religions should be practiced in moderation. The — Narrator, The Enduring Chill
narrator's voice here is dripping with situational irony in
describing Mrs. May as an atheistic Christian.
The narrator relates the thoughts of Asbury, the story's ailing
protagonist who has returned home to the South. Asbury
thinks he is dying and blames his mother for his failure as a
"I ain't got nothing to do with no writer. He wants her to suffer and is glad that she "should see
ten-cent store ... don't want no death in his face at once." He imagines she needs to learn a
lesson, and his death will "assist her in the process of growing
quarter from you." up." However, like other O'Connor "intellectuals," he is the one

who needs to grow up, face facts, and stop feeling sorry for
have put his foot down."
himself. And he is the one who learns a lesson.
— Thomas, The Comforts of Home
"How come you let him drink that

Thomas says this to his mother after she tries to convince him
milk every day?" to feel more charitably toward the wayward girl she has
brought into their lives. She says the girl could be him, were it
— Morgan, The Enduring Chill not that he had a good upbringing and "all the comforts of
home." But Thomas says she is not being rational, and if his
father were still alive, he would have put his foot down. In fact,
Morgan is one of the black dairymen Asbury tries to befriend
however, Thomas despised his father, who was mean and not
when he is attempting to get to know the "Negroes" and learn
above breaking the law. But Thomas is so desperate to get rid
"how they really felt about their condition." Morgan, talking to
of the intruder he ends up channeling the voice of his father in
the other dairyman, Randall, sees Asbury for what he is—a
his head. The result is a terrible tragedy.
liberal poseur—and they simply humor him without giving him
any information. When he tries to get them to share a glass of
milk with him, they refuse, saying they are not allowed to drink
the milk in the dairy. He insists on drinking it anyway, in "'Listen here,' he hissed. 'I don't
defiance of his mother. The dairymen say nothing, although
care if he's good or not. He ain't
they know the unpasteurized milk will make him sick. When
Morgan asks Randall about it, he says, "What he do is him .... right!'"
What I do is me." They are not unhappy for him to get his
comeuppance. — Rufus Johnson, The Lame Shall Enter First
Rufus Johnson is the club-footed 14-year-old delinquent

"His mother, with her daredevil Sheppard takes home to live with him and his son, Norton.
charity, was about to wreck the Norton is still grieving over the death of his mother, who died
about a year ago. Out of egoism masquerading as altruism,
peace of the house." Sheppard has taken on the project of reforming Johnson,
drawn to the boy because he is intelligent. Johnson has no
— Narrator, The Comforts of Home respect for Sheppard for several reasons but begins to hate
him because Sheppard is an atheist. When he speaks badly of
Sheppard in front of Norton, the child defends his father,
The narrator refers to the mother of the protagonist Thomas.
saying he is a good man. But Rufus knows he is not as good as
Thomas's mother is never named. Thomas is angry at his
he pretends to be. Moreover, he is not "right" because his
mother for going far out of her way in trying to reform a 19-
goodness doesn't come from a selfless place.
year-old sociopath in an act of Christian charity. But he objects
to this radical choice because it affects him and the peace of
the house they both live in. He has threatened to leave the
house if the girl is not made to leave, but his mother knows he "You don't believe in that book and
is bluffing. "Daredevil charity," however, can cause disaster
you know you don't believe in it!"
when those who do it go out of their way for strangers at the
expense of their own family, as is the situation in this story.
— Sheppard, The Lame Shall Enter First
"You are not logical ... He would Sheppard has been trying to convince Rufus Johnson, since he
first met him, to give up the superstitions of his fundamentalist

religion. Although Rufus has not been "saved" and has not are shocked to be at the back of the line, and in their "altered
committed himself to Jesus, he is a true believer. He believes if faces" even "their virtues were being burned away." The vision
he doesn't repent he will go to hell. Sheppard finds it hard to is a corrective to the self-righteous Mrs. Turpin, who before her
believe a smart boy would adhere to such a creed, and here he awakening considered herself special and better than other
is accusing Rufus of not telling the truth. To convince classes of people.
Sheppard, Rufus tears out a page of the Bible and chews and
swallows it.
"He saw it as a spider web of facts
"She would dream they were all and lies ... not at all important to
crammed in together in a box car, him ... but necessary."
being ridden off to be put in a gas — Narrator, Parker's Back
oven."
The narrator says this about the protagonist, Parker, after he is
— Narrator, Revelation kicked out of the bar. He has just gotten a large and impressive
tattoo of Jesus inked on his back, and when his friends tease
him about getting religion, he begins to fight with them. This
The narrator is relating what Mrs. Turpin thinks about before
thought comes to Parker when he realizes his life is a tissue of
she falls asleep. The people (they) represent the hierarchy of
truths and untruths, which seem unimportant to him now that
classes, both black and white, and where she fits in. As she
he has turned his life around. Nonetheless, his persona is
begins to fall asleep, everything gets mixed up together, and
necessary to function in the world.
somehow they all seem headed toward a concentration camp.
This dream-fantasy is not only comic ("all the classes of people
were moiling and roiling around in her head") but also
significant because a strict hierarchy of race and class easily
"The white folks IS going to be
leads to a fascist regime and the dehumanization of targeted working for the colored and you
groups.
mights well to git ahead of the
crowd."
"Whole companies of white trash ...
black niggers in white robes ... — Dr. Foley, Judgement Day
battalions of freaks and lunatics

Dr. Foley makes this remark to Tanner, the protagonist of the
shouting and clapping and leaping story, who has been squatting on the land Foley has just
bought. Dr. Foley is biracial but is considered black. Tanner
like frogs."
(who is white) and his friend Coleman (who is black) are in the
moonshine business and have a still. Dr. Foley wants a share of
— Narrator, Revelation the profit in exchange for letting them stay in their shack on his
land. But to work for Foley would be humiliating and offend
The narrator describes Mrs. Turpin's "revelation," her vision of Tanner's "race honor." Foley is mocking Tanner's attitudes by
the highway to heaven, where people of all colors and types saying white folks will be working for black folks on a regular
march along on a "vast swinging bridge extending upward from basis soon enough.
the earth through a field of living fire." She is surprised to see
respectable people like herself are bringing up the rear. They

Everything That Rises Must Converge Study Guide Symbols 40
farm. Mrs. May envies these boys, for her sons are barely
l Symbols getting by financially and have not married. Moreover, her sons
are disrespectful to their mother, whereas the Greenleaf boys
appear to have a good relationship with their parents.
The Doppelgänger
The Sun
Flannery O'Connor makes liberal use of the doppelgänger as a
symbol in her stories. Doppelgängers, or characters who meet
their apparent doubles, appear frequently in fairy tales, myths,
In Flannery O'Connor's fiction, the sun is often a symbol of
and Gothic literature. However, in realistic fiction, a
Jesus Christ and a harbinger of a spiritual awakening. In
doppelgänger is not a literal double, but a second character
"Revelation," immediately before Mrs. Turpin experiences her
who shares characteristics or a fate with a first character but
vision, she sees the crimson sky of the sunset. When only a
is in some way opposite or different. A doppelgänger of this
purple streak of sky remains, she sees "a vast swinging bridge
sort often acts as a mirror for a primary character to see
extending upward from the earth through a field of living fire."
themselves with more self-awareness through their "other." In
On the bridge she sees "a vast horde" of souls "rumbling
"Everything That Rises Must Converge," the black woman on
toward heaven." In "The Enduring Chill," Asbury sees himself in
the bus who is wearing the same ugly green and purple hat as
the mirror and then turns toward the window, where he sees "a
Julian's mother serves as her double, or negative image. She
blinding red-gold sun." Below it the black "treeline ... formed a
symbolizes black rage, which results from the treatment she
brittle wall, standing as if it were the frail defense he had set up
has suffered at the hands of white people like Julian's mother,
in his mind to protect him from what was coming." In this
and thus they are intimately connected. After the black woman
moment Asbury has the opportunity to receive the grace of
hits Julian's mother and knocks her down, Julian comments:
self-knowledge, but he turns his face away from the window as
"That was your black double. She can wear the same hat as
well. Instead, in his fever he has a vision of the Holy Ghost
you, and to be sure ... it looked better on her than it did on you."
delivering ice rather than fire, but this is a hallucination, created
He says his mother's double has appeared to remind her that
by the conversation he had earlier with the priest who came to
her old world is gone, her "old manners are obsolete," and her
visit. The hallucination is likely precipitated by fever.
condescending "graciousness is not worth a damn."
In "A View of the Woods," the child Mary Fortune is the

doppelgänger of her grandfather. She looks like him and has
his temperament, and he attempts to make her entirely his
The Bull
"mini-me" by turning her against her father and eradicating any
trace of the Pitts family. The child symbolizes Mr. Fortune's
stubbornness, which she has inherited from him and which he The bull in the story "Greenleaf" is a symbol of chaos
has also taught her. Mary Fortune, her grandfather's nemesis, associated with nature and the material world, as well as the
represents his oversized ego in her refusal to submit to his chaos sometimes sent by God to shake people out of their
physical chastisement. Just like him, she would rather die than destructive patterns. Mrs. May, the protagonist of the story,
give in. When he tries to whip her, she turns her temper on him wishes to control everything—from her dairy cattle to her sons
and beats him. In the end he kills her to teach her a lesson and to the Greenleafs. She thinks everything should be done in
inevitably kills himself as well, from the shock, with a massive moderation, including worship. Her excessive need for order
heart attack. The Greenleaf twins are the doubles of Mrs. cuts her off from having meaningful relationships with other
May's nasty sons, Schofield and Wesley in "Greenleaf." About people, and it has completely choked off her spiritual life. The
the same age as her sons, the Greenleaf boys, offspring of appearance of the bull is an opportunity for Mrs. May to start
"white trash," have done well for themselves—going to college, on a different footing with Mr. Greenleaf and examine how her
marrying French women, raising children who speak French need to micromanage alienates others. Instead, Mrs. May
(considered very sophisticated), and buying their own dairy escalates the conflict between her and Mr. Greenleaf. As a

Everything That Rises Must Converge Study Guide Themes 41
result, the bull ends up goring her to death. fundamentalist Protestants in O'Connor's stories—for example,
Rufus Johnson and his grandfather in "The Lame Shall Enter
First"—take the story at face value. Other Christians—for
example, a Catholic theologian like Pierre Teilhard de
Pigs Chardin—view the story as an allegory. Either way, the sin
Adam and Eve incurred had to be expiated by a God-man, for
the offense against God could not be made right by a mere
In the story "Revelation," Mrs. Turpin is shocked out of her mortal. This is why Jesus, the Second Person of God, came
complacency when a young woman attacks her and calls her a into the world and had to suffer and die to balance the scales
warthog. Pigs are animals often associated with sloth and with the Creator. Nonetheless, human beings are still born with
uncleanliness, although Mrs. Turpin's pigs stay clean in her up- original sin, which they inherit from the first parents.
to-date "pig parlor." Still, she is excessively offended by the
Although the sacrifice of Christ ultimately redeemed human
insult because she believes the reprimand from Mary Grace,
beings, original sin must be cleansed by the sacrament of
the adolescent who attacks her in the doctor's office, comes
baptism. But baptism does not mean people stop sinning. In
directly from God. While Mrs. Turpin is washing down her pigs
O'Connor's view, the world is a fallen world, and it gets worse
and berating God, she finally sees that the mother sow is a
as time passes. O'Connor sees modernity, secularism, and the
selfless creature, feeding and nurturing her young. The scene
desire to turn one's back on traditional morals and mores as a
in the pig pen suddenly takes on significance: "they had settled
sure way for society to deteriorate further. O'Connor proudly
all in one corner around the old sow who was grunting softly. A
styled herself a 13th-century Christian, claiming that only
red glow suffused them. They appeared to pant with secret
dogmatic religion has the power to make life bearable. For
life." Immediately following this scene, Mrs. Turpin sees the
readers who do not hold to Catholic or even Christian theology,
pilgrim bridge to heaven. Thus, the pigs represent the carnal
O'Connor's stories still depict, vividly and truly, the dark side of
aspect of life, which sometimes takes place in the gutter and
human character. In her highly flawed protagonists, readers
sometimes is the conduit of grace. In Flannery O'Connor's
often see their own hypocrisy, greed, and egotism. From a
worldview, grace must always travel through a channel that
psychological perspective, O'Connor brilliantly portrays the
runs through the material world.
inherent narcissism found in all human beings.
For a secular humanist, the best way to cope with human

failings is to turn to psychological counseling and find a rational
m Themes way to cope with the tragic consciousness of mortality. But for
O'Connor, the only way to cope with sin is to turn to Jesus,
God, or the Holy Spirit and pray for the grace that can create a
Sinfulness and Redemption conversion experience and start the religious person or seeker
down a new path to a more expansive life. Ultimately, Christ is
the redeemer who opened the gates of heaven to Christians.
But in O'Connor's stories the Holy Ghost can descend as a
The sinfulness of humanity is Flannery O'Connor's most purifying spiritual fire to burn away egotism, greed, pride, envy,
prominent theme, appearing in each of the stories in Everything and other sins so Christians can open themselves to receiving
That Rises Must Converge and throughout her other works. divine grace. In all of O'Connor's stories, people are punished
O'Connor was a devout Catholic, who believed sin originally for their sins, but they may or may not be equipped to receive
came into the world when humans disobeyed God. Because the fierce grace sent by O'Connor's formidable and sometimes
God endowed men and women with free will, they made a brutal Holy Spirit. Sometimes it may be obvious that conversion
choice to alienate themselves from God, wishing to follow their and transformation have occurred, as they do in "Revelation,"
own desires rather than remain obedient. The story of Adam and sometimes it seems clear the protagonist has missed the
and Eve in Genesis, the first book of the Hebrew Bible (or boat, as in "A View from the Woods." For the most part,
Christian Old Testament), is taken by some Christians as a however, the endings of her stories are open to interpretation.
literal accounting of humanity's first parents. The

mother.
Hubris of Intellectuals Sheppard in "The Lame Shall Enter First." Sheppard, a
college graduate, has expertise in counseling and
psychology. However, he is completely deluded in his
A recurring theme in Flannery O'Connor's stories is the hubris reading of Rufus Johnson, a delinquent he allows to board
and self-delusion of her so-called intellectuals. They usually are at his house. Sheppard's hubris knows no bounds in that he
atheists, agnostics, or secular humanists who believe they are believes he can refashion Rufus in his own image. He is so
smarter than others. Often they reject religion as superstition blind and so set on his agenda, however, that he neglects
and may even go so far as to proselytize against it. Intellectuals his own son—who desperately needs him—to take care of
are also the butt of O'Connor's most biting wit, often seen as Rufus—who does not. Sheppard's misguided actions cause
situational or dramatic irony. They tend to be coldhearted, live his son's death.
in their heads, have difficulty forming meaningful relationships,
and remain dependent on a parent whom they treat with scorn
or disdain. Finally, they almost always get their comeuppance
and are put in their place. If they are open to grace, they might
Duty to Family
experience transformation. Some examples of self-deluded
intellectuals in these nine stories include:
Another important theme that runs through Flannery
Julian in "Everything That Rises Must Converge." Julian has O'Connor's stories is the primacy of family and the importance
been to college and styles himself as a liberal and an of doing one's duty with regard to family members. O'Connor
intellectual who has broken the bonds of dependence on his was dismayed by the breakdown of traditional society, the
mother as well as erased his own racial prejudice. He is family unit being the backbone of any society. When the family
entirely deluded in these matters. The narrator points out becomes weak and fails to provide its members with the love
his hypocrisy with regard to race by giving the reader and support they need, people stumble. This movement has a
access to his internal dialogue. When his mother dies at the domino effect that ripples through society. O'Connor also
end of the story, he takes off his mask of sophistication and shows that when the younger generation disrespects the older
cries out in mourning, "Mamma!" generation, and young people do not know their place, they
Wesley in "Greenleaf." Wesley is a minor character who open the door to anarchy. Finally, if parents are irresponsible,
teaches at a university and hates everything. He is children are bound to grow up with problems and may even die
dependent on and nasty to his mother, incorrectly from parental neglect.
predicting she has many years to live.
Asbury and his sister, Mary George, in "The Enduring Chill." Several of the families in these stories are single-parent
The protagonist in this story, Asbury has been to college households, some headed by women. These include the
and goes to New York to get away from his provincial mothers in "Everything That Rises Must Converge,"
hometown. Nonetheless, a change of venue is not enough "Greenleaf," "The Enduring Chill," and "The Comforts of Home."
to change his status as a failed writer. He is an infantile Although they may be good to their children, they are not
whiner, who blames his mother for his own shortcomings. always respected in return. Those who are do-gooders or
Mary George is an elementary school principal, who is cruel shame their children in one way or another create lasting
to her brother and makes fun of his literary aspirations. rancor. Thomas's mother, a blatant do-gooder in "The Comfort
Thomas in "The Comforts of Home." A historian who has a of Home" puts the well-being of a sociopathic stranger ahead
close relationship with his mother, Thomas seems incapable of the needs of her own son. This failure to adhere to her duty
of bonding with others, particularly women. He has good to the family causes the destruction of both herself and her
reason to be alarmed about the entry of the sociopathic son. A similar pattern surfaces in "The Lame Shall Enter First,"
Star into his life, but his hysteria over her sexual advances is in which the single father, Sheppard, puts the needs of his
excessive and seems to indicate he has a small ambit in protégé, a malicious juvenile delinquent, ahead of the needs of
which he is able to navigate the world. Because he is inept his grieving son. As a result, his son commits suicide. In
at handling difficulties, he ends up shooting and killing his "Parker's Back," a wife unjustly rejects her husband because

she cannot compromise between her worldview and his about

to how to worship and pray. In "A View of the Woods," a
narcissistic grandfather ends up killing his favorite
granddaughter because she does not live up to his
expectations. All the conflicts in these stories are worked out
within a family circle of one sort or another, and while the
primary theme of O'Connor's work is sin and redemption, the
responsibility to family is closely related, as characters work
out their destinies among blood relations.
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What are some of the major themes in Flannery O'Connor's short stories?

What are some of the major themes in Flannery O'Connor's short stories?

What is the significance of the title of the collection?

What is the significance of the title of the collection?

Everything That

of a human mind. O'Connor is merciless in unfolding this view,

d In Context because it saw the theory of evolution as a threat to Church

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Catholics and Protestants in thinking, particularly evolution, fundamentalists accept Bible

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Reconstructionists who attempted to impose new values on

While O'Connor likely believed the devil tempted people to

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a Author Biography Writing Life

Education This stabilizing and productive time was interrupted in 1950,

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Full Character List Dr. Block

Sheppard, the protagonist in "The Lame

O.E. Parker, also known as Obadiah In "Greenleaf," Mrs. Greenleaf practices a

The protagonist of "Judgement Day,"

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Mrs. Pitts sides with her husband against

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Tanner's daughter in "Judgement Day"

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husband, Claud, are in the doctor's waiting room because

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On the bus Julian's mother begins a conversation with another

Everything That Rises Must is continually simmering at his mother's struggle to be a

Converge And he is further infuriated when his mother begins to discuss

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sorrow." with its "threadbare elegance." He resents having grown up in

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is also accurate. Nonetheless, readers may find Julian's mother sympathetic

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When Mr. Fortune tells the family he is negotiating to sell the

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ministrations. soda and candy. Mrs. Turpin thinks that's a poor

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