A Habit of Being Great: Learning From Flannery O?Connor

“There she stands, to me, a phoenix risen from her own words: calm, slow, funny, courteous, both modest and very sure of herself, intense, sharply penetrating, devout but never pietistic, downright, occasionally fierce, and honest in a way that restore to honor to the word”, this is how Sally Fitzgerald described her dear friend Mary Flannery O’Connor. (xii) Not to long ago, I read my first Mary Flannery O’Connor story and I came to view Mary Flannery O’Connor as an artist whose key subject was grace, but what are these stories, these works of art truly about, what is Flannery O’ Connor trying to tell the readers. In order to interpret a story though the eyes of an author like Flannery O’Connor you must first look through the eyes of the author. You must see what he/she sees. It would be arrogant to believe that a person can truly understand another by studying them, but I have learned a great deal in trying to do so. Mary Flannery O’Connor wrote about grace and salvation, and has taught me about finding truth; I attribute the lessons she has taught me to, the way she viewed herself, the way others viewed her, her writings, and many other effects.

Mary Flannery O’Connor was confident, modest, and honest. She often criticized herself. She once referred to herself as “prematurely arrogant” in a letter to her friend, Paul Engle. (Fitzgerald 14) “Flannery described herself as a ‘pigeon-toed only child with a receding chin and a you-leave-me-alone-or-I'll-bite-you complex.’”(Wikipedia) Even with all of her self-critizism, she was self-confident. She was quite arrogant and lead her to write what I believe is her greatest work, “The Artifical Nigger”. “What she often described as proably the best thing she would ever write , ‘The Artifical Nigger’ –a story that she contains more than she herself ever understood.”(Fitzgerald xviii) She was witty and quick to tell you exactly what she thought. In O’Connor’s letters she never lied not even to spare the feelings of those she was in correspondence with. She lived a seemly boring life, but was always lively and sharp until the day she died.

Many people adored her and she adored them as well,but the person who knew O’Connor best would have to be Sally Fitzgerald. It is though her eyes that I see who the true Mary Flannery O’Connor was. It is clear that even though O’Connor lived a sheltered life she still was a people.