Flannery O Connor Grandmother

A brilliant storyteller during the mid-twentieth century, Flannery O'Connor wrote intriguing tales of morality, ethics and religion. A Southern writer, she wrote in the Southern Gothic style, cataloging thirty-two short stories; the most well known being “A Good Man is Hard to Find.” Mary Flannery O'Connor was born on March 25, 1925, in Savannah, Georgia. Raised in her mother's family home in Milledgeville, Georgia, she was the only child of Regina Cline and Edward Francis O'Connor, Jr. Although little is known about Mrs. O'Connor's early childhood, in Melissa Simpson's biography on O'Connor, Simpson states that O'Connor attended St. Vincent's Grammar School in Savannah where she would rarely play with the other children and spent most her time reading by herself. After fifth, grade, O'Connor transferred; to Sacred Heart Grammar School for Girls; some say the reason for the transfer was that it was a more prestigious school than the former. She later enrolled in Peabody High School in 1938, entered an accelerated program at Georgia State Collge for Women in the summer of 1942, and in 1946 she

A seemingly religious and moral women, the Grandmother is not without flaws. In Short Stories for Students, Kathleen Wilson describes the Grandmother as selfish and pushy, writing “…her desire to see a house from her childhood results in the family’s death at the end of the story.” Wilson maintains that “Her religious epiphany at the story’s end provide the philosophical thrust behind the narrative.” (Wilson 100). Calling her the heroine of the story, O’Connor says that “…the Grandmother, is in the most significant position life offers a Christian. She is facing death ….like the rest of us, is not too well prepared for it.” O’Connor continues saying that the Grandmother is in fact evil. Calling her a “witch”, she says “…that morally the Misfit is several cuts above the Grandmother” (O’Connor