Flannery O’Connor was an extremely revered author for his writing techniques that may be examined throughout almost all of his pieces, especially in: “Everything That Rises Must Converge” and “Greenleaf”. Both of these short stories hone in on the two most controversial topics in societal history: religion and race. And with that, “Everything That Rises Must Converge”, a short story in the collection Everything That Rises Must Converge, is a brief tale from a third person point of view, set in the late 1960s; that of an old mother and her young adult son, Julian, who the story focuses on. He is a College graduate that’s too caught up in his own self-proclaimed brilliant mind and knows his mother is too bigoted to deal with the integration of African Americans into white communities. The story moves with an argument between the two about how African Americans really behave. All the while, he is helping her get to The Y for her weekly weight-loss class. She whimpers often about her terribly ugly hat and wanting to return it, but stubbornly gets on the bus continuing to discuss African American integration being wrong. After they board the bus and the whites make comments about it lacking any blacks, An African American gentleman in a suit enters and Julian sits by him to attempt to spite his mother, and then an African American lady and her son enter who ironically dons the identical hat to Julian’s mother. She is playful with the child but is seen as a racist when she tries to offer him a penny. She is denied when the child’s mother views it as an act of pity and Julian thinks that he has finally won the argument but is interrupted when his mother has a stroke. The story ends with Julian shouting for help. While this story focuses ... ... middle of paper ... ...eenleaf is good, and when the story comes to a close, Mrs. May is pierced through the heart by the bull and it is revealed that she experienced that drastic change she needed as she almost looked as if she was whispering to the bull, “some last discovery” (467). This story seems to be a religious standpoint for O’Connor and is really where he fails with the story; it attempts at levels of depth and meaning but ends up only as his religious anecdote in the collection. In the end, “Everything That Rises Must Converge” boasts a deeper meaning, those multiple levels of theme and symbols, truly is superior to “Greenleaf” that simply offers a symbol and morals. They both reached their central purposes of race and religion, but “Greenleaf” felt a bit too much like a smack on the hand religious lesson instead. Works Cited Perrine's Literature: Structure, Sound, and Sense
The transition of being a black man in a time just after slavery was a hard one. A black man had to prove himself at the same time had to come to terms with the fact that he would never amount to much in a white dominated country. Some young black men did actually make it but it was a long and bitter road. Most young men fell into the same trappings as the narrator’s brother. Times were hard and most young boys growing up in Harlem were swept off their feet by the onslaught of change. For American blacks in the middle of the twentieth century, racism is another of the dark forces of destruction and meaninglessness which must be endured. Beauty, joy, triumph, security, suffering, and sorrow are all creations of community, especially of family and family-like groups. They are temporary havens from the world''s trouble, and they are also the meanings of human life.
In a country full of inequities and discrimination, numerous books were written to depict our unjust societies. One of the many books is an autobiography by Richard Wright. In Black Boy, Wright shares these many life-changing experiences he faced, which include the discovery of racism at a young age, the fights he put up against discrimination and hunger, and finally his decision to move Northward to a purported better society. Through these experiences, which eventually led him to success, Wright tells his readers the cause and effect of racism, and hunger. In a way, the novel The Tortilla Curtain by T.C. Boyle illustrates similar experiences.
He imagined his mother lying desperately ill and his being able to secure only a Negro doctor for her. He toyed with that idea for a few minutes and then dropped it for a momentary vision of himself participating as a sympathiser in a sit-in demonstration. This was possible but he did not linger with it. Instead, he approached the ultimate horror. He brought home a beautiful suspiciously Negroid woman. Prepare yourself, he said. There is nothing you can do about it. This is the woman I have chosen. (15)
Although Flannery O’Connor didn’t even live to see her 40th birthday, her fiction endures to this day. In “A Good Man is Hard to Find” and “Everything that Rises Must Converge,” O’Connor effectively deals with the two huge themes (topics) of religion and racism. These two themes are crucial to understanding much of O’Connor’s great works and are relevant to all readers of O’Connor throughout all ages.
This novel also looks at social norms overseeing gender in the southern states around the 1960's. White women in the book are valued by the amount of children they can reproduce for the black women to raise. Even though getting a job is difficult for these black woman, the white women have a hard time seeking out a job as well. But these black women sacrifice their lives to be major workhorses surrendering their own families to work for white employers. Aibileen, Minny, and Skeeter confront the roles put upon them by society and receive fulfillmen...
When comparing the two short stories and holding them in tension with each other, it is neither the black woman nor the African American man’s arrogance, but one’s hubris that is the source of the difficulties of one’s race and the demise of oneself. Wright believes that the black woman is the source of difficulties. Hurston believes that the black man’s hubris is the cause of his demise. By holding these two stories in tension with each other, the emerging truth is that hubris is the cause of downfall.
Ann Petry’s “Like a Winding Sheet” is the story of Johnson and Mae, a seemingly happy African American couple working and living in Harlem, New York. The story spans over the course of one day following Johnson’s life. Throughout this day he faces discrimination, which builds an anger in him, which he releases in the form of domestic abuse against his wife. Through her use of imagery, symbols, and character development Petry shows the anger discrimination can cause and how it plays into the cycle of abuse that African American women face.
Flannery O'Connor's short story "Everything That Rises Must Converge" is set during the early 1960's in the South. In this story, O’Connor captures the changing discourse between a mother and son at a time when white supremacy was slowly deteriorating and integration was beginning to be accepted in the bounds of the society. The main character Julian, is an educated college graduate who given his education imposes liberal views on segregation. Since his mother is uneducated and carries racist and ignorant views, Julien constantly looks down on her and always searches for ways to teach his mother a lesson. As the story unfolds readers begin to see each character for what they truly are and it is discovered that Julien and his mother are really not that different after all. By incorporating different sets of irony like situational irony, irony of character, and dramatic irony, O’Conner work to prove the theme of you can’t hide from yourself
Mrs. Turpin in Flannery O’Connor’s short story Revelation, is a prejudice and judgmental woman who spends most of her life prying in the lives of everyone around her. She looks at people not for who they are, but for their race or social standing. In fact, Mrs. Turpin is concerned with race and status so much that it seems to take over her life. Although she seems to disapprove of people of different race or social class, Mrs. Turpin seems to be content and appreciative with her own life. It is not until Mrs. Turpin’s Revelation that she discovers that her ways of life are no better then those she looks down upon and they will not assure her a place in Heaven.
Racism is a constant of American society. No other society may be as racist. Yet, what other society has made such valiant efforts to rid itself of this evil? Fitzgerald, who hated discussing such political questions, may ultimately be judged by not only this novel, but by the fascinating personal decisions he made in his own life. His conversion to Islam (only a few short weeks before his death at in the attack on Pearl Harbor) may or may not have been the key to reinvigorating his writing, but, as Boris Becker reminds us: “He was not a racist. He was a man who was determined, in the best way he knew, to bring all races closer.”
Aside from the mother’s race and gender, her lack of education also plays a role in the hardships in her life. Hughes makes her limited education apparent in his use of her vernacular. Words like “ain’t” and “I’se” (MS lines 4, 9) symbolize the fact that Mother is from a Black background and she does not have sufficient education. These limitations, however, do not keep her from persevering and keeping a positive paradigm. She wants her son to realize that, though they may not have the best education or a more advantageous skin color, they must strive to overcome these hardships to reach their higher potential.
Whitt, Margaret. Understanding Flannery O’Connor. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1995. 47-48, 78. Print.
The author, in contrast, also tries to show the equality of two races through Julian himself and his thoughts. When Julian sees his mother wearing the same hat as one of the black woman, he says that the black woman looks better in the hat. Not only that, he tries to engage in conversation with a black man to show the black's wise. In this way, Julian tries to teach his mother that now it is not time for difference but equality, and her thoughts about those blacks should be changed to fit in with the society.
A main theme in this novel is the influence of family relationships in the quest for individual identity. Our family or lack thereof, as children, ultimately influences the way we feel as adults, about ourselves and about others. The effects on us mold our personalities and as a result influence our identities. This story shows us the efforts of struggling black families who transmit patterns and problems that have a negative impact on their family relationships. These patterns continue to go unresolved and are eventually inherited by their children who will also accept this way of life as this vicious circle continues.
The Black woman struggles against oppression not only as a result of her race, but also because of her gender. Slavery created the perception of Black inferiority; sexism traces back to the beginning of Western tradition. White men have shaped nearly every aspect of culture, especially literature. Alice Walker infuses her experiences as a Black woman who grew up in Georgia during the Civil Rights era into the themes and characters of her contemporary novels. Walker’s novels communicate the psychology of a Black woman under the Western social order, touch on the “exoticism of Black women” and challenge stereotypes molded by the white men in power (Bobo par. 24). In The Color Purple Walker illustrates the life of a woman in an ordinary Black family in the rural South; in his article “Matriarchal Themes in Black Family Literature”, Rubin critiques that Walker emphasizes not only that the Black female is oppressed within society, but also that external oppression causes her to internalize her inferiority. Every theme in Walker’s writings is given through the eyes of a Black woman; by using her personal experiences to develop her short stories and novels, Walker gives the Black woman a voice in literature. Walker demonstrates through her writings that the oppression of Black women is both internal and external.