Everything that Rises Must Converge

In Flannery O’ Conner’s short story “Everything that Rises Must Converge” is focused on two main characters Julian and his mother, there is also Carver, Carvers mother, a well-dressed African man and another white woman these four characters are very important in this story because are significant to the point that Flannery O’ Conner is trying to make throughout this story.
Julian’s mother is a to be an older white lady that goes to the YMCA to lose some weight, but at the same time is all about where her status is at. She would like to think that she is very important person, she wears her hat and gloves to go to the Y to work out and she wants her son to maintain a certain look of being a well-off person otherwise she thinks he is a “thug” for not being proper at all times. She is also a self-absorbed person, in the first page all she can talk about is her and that hat she just bought. Going back and forth on if she should keep it or not, it’s almost as if she needs her son to say that this hat looks good on her, and even after he tells her the hat looks fine she goes on to have everything be about her and “knowing who she is.” Flannery O’ Conner never really gives Julian’s mother a name, however it is very obvious that is thinks that she is above colored people and a racist, “She would not ride the buses by herself at night since they had been integrated.” (PG.1) Being brought up in the time period that she did she completely believed that Africans are better off being slaves. She points out in page 5 that the only reason she will not ride the bus by herself is because an African person was able to sit somewhat close to her and her narrow mindedness thinks that this is unfair in a sense. Julian’s mother thinks so high of hersel...

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...ring the same hat that Julian’s mother has on. They both wear this “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 1) Having that they both wore the same hat made Julian’s mother upset because she felt that she had just spent some much money on that hat and too see someone else wearing it furthermore seeing a African lady wear that hat tipped Julian’s mother over the edge. The mother became very furious when Julian’s mother tried to give a hand out to her little boy.
The characters in this story were very important to get Flannery O’ Conner’s point a cross that there are many different people in this world that have different views on the world but in the end it doesn’t matter what color your skin because some things are out of your control like her stroke.