English Literature
mahel
english_2030_fiction_oconnor.pptShort Fiction
English
2030
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Flannery
O’Connor
O’Connor described herself as a “pigeon-toed only child with a receding chin and a you-leave-me-alone-or-I’ll-bite-you complex.”
A little known fact: when she was five years old, O’Connor taught a chicken to walk backwards.
At age 26, she was diagnosed with lupus, an hereditary disease that also killed her father. She died of lupus at age 39, at her childhood home in Milledgeville, Georgia.
1925-1964
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“Christ-haunted people of the South”
One of O’Connor’s most interesting theories, and one that permeates much of her writing, was her notion that people in the South were somehow haunted by their religious beliefs.
As a devout Roman Catholic, O’Connor did not see God’s love in the people around her in rural Georgia.
Instead of being good people because of their religious convictions, O’Connor felt people of southern protestant faith were bullied by their beliefs into hypocritical, monstrous behavior. These “haunted” people populate her novels and short stories.
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They shall take up serpents…
The Southern practice of snake handling
Mark 16:17-18
“And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well."
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The word, grotesque, comes from “grotto,” the elaborate, underground tunnels that snake through the belly of Rome. On the walls of those grottos, archeologists found crude drawings with exaggerated features, thus, grotesques, for their often malformed features.
Grotesque
Images: left, a grotesque sculpture from ancient Rome; above, detail.
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