An Analysis Of Something Is Until It's Gone 'By Flannery O' Connor

You Never Know How Important Something Is Until It’s Gone

Stories by author Flannery O'Connor alway ends with a moment of grace for characters in her stories. In “Everything that Rises Must Converge” we see the moment of grace for Julian in the very end. In the beginning of the story, we see Julian as an angry and irritated grown man that still relies on his mother. He is depicted as a failure in society, who puts out his frustration on his mother. He feels as if he needs to overpower his mother in order to make him feel better about himself. Julian’s condescending attitude towards his mother eventually pushes her to the point where she suffers from a stroke, only was that the moment he realizes his wrongdoing. Early on in the story, we see that Julian acts disdainful

He is irritated when his mother makes him bus to the Y with her. “Julian did not like to consider all she did for him, but every Wednesday night he braced himself and took her.” Julian sees it as a chore and is discontent about his mother as well as the life he is living. Julian’s dissatisfaction in life leads him to try to teach his mother a lesson in life to feel that he has control in life. He attempts to prove that he is liberated, more knowledgeable and open minded than his mother by showing how non-racist he is compared to his mother. He tries hard to distinguish himself from his conservative mother who is stuck in the past. Julian does that by displaying his “openness” to African Americans. In the bus, he sits with a black man and even says that he will bring an educated, smart, and rich black women home with him. This however, indirectly shows that Julian is also somewhat a racist. He says he will bring a