Reflections on Self-Battle: Flannery O'Connor's Lupus Journey

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The Mime
Flannery O’Connor brings her characters to life by having them mimic scenarios that she goes through during her jarring battle with Lupus. She struggled with Lupus, which is a condition in which a person’s immune system attacks their own tissues and organs. Inflammation caused by this terrible disease can affect many different body systems, including a person’s joints, skin, kidneys, blood cells, brain, and many more. O’Connor portrays fictional characters going through harsh struggles with themselves, whether it be mentally, physically, or emotionally. O’Connor creates her characters to always be at war with one’s self. This reflects the constant battle she had with herself while dealing with Lupus. Flannery was an "American novelist, …show more content…

Flannery shows the readers this when she has Jillian and his mother argue about their own faith. The reason O’Connor incorporates religion into her short stories is because religion is “the ground note of her fiction” (Shinn, Thelma J. 375). Jillian gets fed up with his mother for going on and on about how others should “know themselves” and be gracious. Jillian exclaims, “They don’t give a damn for your graciousness...knowing who you are is good for one generation only...you have the foggiest idea where you stand now or who you are” (O’Connor 2).The mother has to take a second and process what Jillian had just said to her. Finally, she gets the words to flow out. His mom says, “I most certainly do know who I am...and if you don’t know who you are, I am ashamed of you” (O’Connor 2) The readers see here how strongly Jillian’s mother feels about her faith and how little Jillian does. This quote shows O’Connor’s incorporation with religious beliefs. Flannery was very religious, therefore the mother is a representation of her. Throughout O’Connor’s life, many people told her that she could not be an artist because she was Catholic. The reason she incorporates religious incidents throughout her short stories is to live on her Catholic beliefs and to prove to those that religion was such a huge part of her life. Flannery O’Connor stands behind her religion in such a way that the readers …show more content…

O’Connor “creates a more discomfort feeling for her white readers than she does for black ones, forcing the white audience to confront their racism directly” (Armstrong 4-5). O’Connor’s title of this short story, “Everything That Rises Must Converge”, is metaphorical and serves as a purpose for racial occurrences. The title is linked to “the theme of hope- the belief that, despite the cruelty, violence, and intolerance prevalent in modern life, the planet is advancing and rising toward unity” (Explanation of: ‘Everything That Rises Must Converge’ by Flannery O’Connor 10-12). No one really knows if Flannery O’Connor was racist. She generates her readers to constantly be questioning themselves throughout all of her work. O’Connor displays her character to make a racial comment, however the character was in fact not. Jillian 's mother declares, “Now you see why I don’t ride the bus by myself” (O’Connor 5). This is a very racist quote, yet some of the readers might not understand why O’Connor decides to write this. After reading this quote, the reader sees how Flannery’s character gets along with the African Americans and likes them. O’Connor is displaying that many people are quick to judge, especially by the color of someone’s skin. The readers see Jillian’s mother’s intrigueness towards the other race by when she has her

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