Analysis Of Flannery O Connor's Everything That Rises Must Converge

Analysis of "Everything That Rises Must Converge"
“Come gather ‘round people wherever your roam, and admit that the waters around you have grown, and accept it that soon you’ll be drenched to the bone” The Times They Are A Changin’ was written by Bob Dylan, as an indication of the immensely changing country, during the Civil rights movement(Dylan, Bob). Flannery O’Connor’s "Everything That Rises Must Converge,” recognizes the moral questions and deep human weaknesses of everyday life. Racial tensions were still very high in America. Flannery O’Connor’s "Everything That Rises Must Converge,” paints a vivid picture of the mindsets of many 1960’s households. The Protagonist, Julian is an aspiring writer, who has just graduated from college.

Julian uses racism as a disguise for his true feelings towards his mother. While his mothers condescending view towards african americans is morally questionable, they were in no way ill-intentioned. She states” I remember the old dark who was my nurse, Caroline. There was no better person in the world,” suggesting that Caroline and Julian’s Mother may have held a somewhat intimate relationship The story ends with Julian’s mother being physically hit by a black woman to realize her racist views, while Julian reaches his epiphany as his mother begins to have a stroke and he realizes that he actually loves his mother. In "Everything That Rises Must Converge,” Ms. Flannery O’Connor uses satire, symbolism, and irony and violence to condemn moral ignorance.
Ms. Flannery O’Connor evidently uses ridicule to condemn the old South. All of the characters within "Everything That Rises Must Converge" are all extremes. Julian’s mother through the duration of the story continues to be extremely ignorant of the fact that the world has passed the antebellum South. “You remain what you are,” she said “ Your great-grandfather had a plantation and two hundred slaves (Pg. 497).” It is evident Julian’s mother is still living in the past. She is so stuck on her view of the person she was, that she is not seeing the present for what it truly should be seen as. She is descended from a well-respected, southern family, and refuses to relinquish her old racist views. Like many families in the 1960’s, Julian’s mother attempts to ignore integration and feels that, “they were better off when they were (slaves)((Pg. 497).”
The protagonist, Julian unlike his mother is a more complicated character.

Early it seems as though after attending college, Julian may have gained a new, free spirited way of thinking. After reading farther on throughout the short story it’ evident that Ms. O’Connor in a way uses mockery to enhance the extensive relationship between Julian and his mother. It becomes increasingly evident that Julian’s condensation of his mother comes not from her racist view, but from his own personal, “evil urge to break her spirit (pg. 498).” Both main protagonists are subject to Flannery O’Connor’s meaningful mockery. O’Connor mocks Julian by making him a character a well-educated person that is not using his education (Milne, Ira

Mark).
While satire plays a large part in presenting Ms. O’Connor’s message, another large factor within "Everything That Rises Must Converge" is symbolism. Symbolism is within the nooks and cranny’s of the entire story. All of the symbols within the story are depicted with strong imagery. The first symbol is that Ms. O’Connor exposes is this hat where a, “a purple velvet flap came down on one side of it and stood up on the other; the rest of it was green and looked like a cushion with the stuffing out (Pg. 496).” This same hat costed Julian’s mother seven dollars and fifty cents. She later feels buyers remorse and states that the money could have been spent on the gas bill. In a way it symbolizes how superficial she truly is (Rowlett, Douglas). Later, on the bus Julian’s mother spots an African American woman wearing the same hat. She still has yet to absorb the fact that she is apart of the lower-middle class.
The next most prominent symbol was the integrated bus.

Flannery O’Connor uses the bus to symbolize a piece of the 1960’s southern society. Julian and his mother were riding a bus where the whites, blacks, educated, uneducated, and poor. She is able to give the reader a visual of the interactions between different people in a constantly changing society(Rowlett, Douglas). Also on the bus, both Julian and his mother must face reality, by seeing that blacks can sit wherever they want. Julian’s mother faces a sense of discomfort as a black man enters the bus and decides to sit across from her. Even so Julian moves to sit next to him and possible converse. Yet finally pulls herself together towards the end. Julian on the other hand is reminded that he may not be as “liberal” as feels (Milne, Ira Mark). Every African American that enters the bus throws Julian out of his thoughts. After attempting both a conversation with both the black man, and the African woman and Carver, Julian realizes that they don’t desire his

attention.
The final piece of symbolism presented to us is the penny. The penny symbolizes two different sides of the story to both Carver and Julian’s mother. Julian’s mother, who from the narrators perspective, especially thinks little black boys are adorable gave the penny to the little boy as a generous action. Carver’s Mother on the other hand was extremely angry at this handout, seeing the action as an assertion of dominance. This action was a slice of the conflicting points of view of the south (Milne, Ira Mark).
“Everything That Rises Must Converge",” is narrated in third person point of view. Although the narrator has complete access to both Julian and his mother’s thought, they don’t empathize with either of them. Flannery O’Connor’s trademark in all of her short stories is Violence. Violence and irony are the two most prominent themes within this short story. The violence was truly ironic throughout the end of the story (Literary Themes for Students). In the end the slap to Julian’s mother essentially sent the mother back, not only physically but also back to the past that she was still unrealistically living in. As she was having a stroke, she called out to her father and her nurse, Caroline. Her son is also awakened by this violent slap. The slap of his mother’s stroke, makes him see that he in fact loves his mother (Literary Themes for Students) (Shmoop Editorial Team). “He dashed forward and fell at her side, crying, “Mamma, Mamma(Pg. 506)!” This particular line displays his true feelings about his mother.
In “Everything That Rises Must Converge,” Flannery O’Connor’s uses humor, symbolism, and ironic violence to disapprove of human’s lack of knowledge. Flannery O’Connor wrote the mothers view from the standpoint of a slaveholding, pre-Civil War lady, whom had gone down in society standing because of the civil. Julian’s point of view was written from a college graduate, liberal standpoint. Julian used his “education” as a way to attest to the way he treated his mother. In a way it was as if Julian was upset with his mother, because she refused to acknowledge his failure no matter what. Thought the duration of the story Flannery O’Connor made it evident , that even in the title that everyone goes through changes, and with all change must come adjustments. In the end like Bob Dylan’s song, Flannery O’ Connor truly represented the main ideas from the 1960’s, post-Civil War South. “Come gather ‘round people wherever your roam, and admit that the waters around you have grown, and accept it that soon you’ll be drenched to the bone(Dylan, Bob.)”