Flannery O’Conner: Deep South Scribe

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Recommended: Analysis of Flannery O'Connor's writings

Dead at the age of thirty nine years young, Flannery O’Conner lost her fight with lupus, but had won her place as one of America’s great short story writers and essayist. Born in Savannah, Georgia, within the borders of America’s “Bible Belt”, she is raised Catholic, making O’Connor a minority in the midst of the conservative Protestant and Baptist faiths observed in the Southern United States. In the midst of losing her father at the age fifteen, followed by her diagnosis and struggle with the same physical illness that took him, as well as her strong unwavering faith in the Catholic Church are crucial components of O’Connor’s literary style which mold and guide her stories of loss, regret, and redemption. Flannery O’Connor’s writings may be difficult to comprehend at times, but the overall theme of finding grace, sometimes in the midst of violence or tragedy, can be recognized in the body of her works. O’Connor’s stories are written about family dysfunction, internal angst towards life or a loved one, and commonly take place on a farm, plantation or a family home in the American South. Her stories of ethical and moral challenge blur the boundaries between her Catholic faith and values, which also include the values of the other religious faiths surrounding her in her youth, simply writing of the pain and struggles which people from all walks of life commonly share.
On March 25th, 1925 Edward Francis O'Connor and Regina Cline O'Connor give birth to their only child and baptize her as Mary Flannery O’Connor (Bloom 11). She is raised as a devout Roman Catholic attending St. Vincent’s Grammar School and Scared Heart Parochial School for Girls in Savannah from 1931 - 1938, followed by St. Joseph's Parochial School and North Fulton ...

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...ogue of the South in that time period towards minorities.

Works Cited

"Andalusia historic farm, home of American writer Flannery O?Connor in Milledgeville." The Flannery O'Connor - Andalusia Foundation, Inc. N.p., n.d. Web. 9 Dec. 2013.

May, Charles E. Flannery O'Connor. Pasadena, Calif: Salem Press, 2012. Print.

Brewer, Nadine. "Christ, Satan, and Southern Protestantism in O'Connor's Fiction." Flannery O'Connor Bulletin 14 (1985): 103-111. Rpt. in Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism. Ed. Janet Witalec. Vol. 132. Detroit: Gale, 2003. Literature Resource Center. Web. 25 Nov. 2013

Hayes, John, and Charles E. May. "The "Christ-Haunted" South: Contextualizing Flannery O'Connor." Critical Insights: Flannery O'Connor (2011): 43-58. Literary Reference Center. Web. 18 Nov. 2013.

Bloom, Harold. Flannery O'Connor. Broomall, PA: Chelsea House Publishers, 1999. Print.

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