Judgement Day Flannery O Connor

In her last work, Judgement Day, Flannery O’Connor depicts the reality of the struggle in change of social hierarchy and race relations of her time. She fully utilizes all characterizations of the people in that time, including the use of the decretory word ‘nigger’. O’Connor displays the biases and constructs of the time through context clues and within analysis of dialogue. Judgement Day shows the hierarchy of race and structure of power in the north compared to the south. The main character, Tanner, a white old man from Georgia, wants nothing more than to go back to his social normality in the south, where he is in control and holds power over the blacks because of his white skin color. Tanner is insistent upon returning, “retreating”,

to the south. An analysis may reveal that this has to do with the construction of race and the hierarchy in different parts of the nation. Tanner wants to return to where the southern ‘code’ is still widely present. O’Connor uses several race theories and concepts to extrapolate the instances.
Intersectionality is the mixing of social classes and race on a grand scale.

In the 1950’s, the north was beginning to be much more racially integrated; social and legislative views of race were changing for the better. Tanner at one point in his life is squatting on land owned by Dr. Foley, a highly influential mixed-race doctor. “He was everything to the niggers,” Tanner notes (535). While O’Connor defines his race as part black, Indian, and white, Tanner characterizes him as a nigger, a black person held in the lowest regard, in his thought dialogue. When the doctor comes to check on his property, Tanner struggles with accepting the new restructuring of race and power. “Be prepared, because you ain’t got a thing to hold up to him but the skin you come in,” he says to himself as Dr. Foley approaches. Tanner inherently believes that he deserves to stay on Dr. Foley’s land simply because the white man should not be under the

black.
However, he is also aware that the government does not believe the same thing, and that if Dr.

Foley were to press charges, he would be prosecuted. “You don’t have a chance with the government against you,” Tanner thinks to himself (535). He tries to talk above Dr. Foley anyway, “The government ain’t got around yet to forcing the white folks to work for the colored,” Tanner says in response to Dr. Foley’s ultimatum of working for him or getting off his property (540). Reluctantly, Tanner moves in with his daughter in the north, however, regrets this decision later. “If he had known it was a question of this- sitting here looking out of this window all day in this no-place, or just running a still for a nigger, he would have run the still for the nigger. He would have been a nigger’s white nigger any day,” O’Connor narrates (540). The terminology Tanner uses is the basic breakdown of the south’s binary definitions of race, and shows the fluidity with which privileged white men can move between the

classes.
O’Connor many times does not explicitly define the race of a given character, instead uses context clues and interpretive dialogue for the reader to infer. One of the ways in which she characterizes them is through the use of the words ‘nigger’ and ‘Negro’. Throughout the short story, while the white characters were defined by their name, the black characters were referred to as one of the previous offensive slang words, even if those black characters were introduced into the story previously. In short, the black characters are treated and represented terribly. When Tanner’s daughter comes to investigate his living situations, she is mortified at the sight of Coleman when she firsts sees him at the foot of Tanner’s bed, and immediately retreats outside. She is astonished at the fact that Tanner lives with a black man.
The biracial couple moving in next door to Tanner’s daughter’s New York apartment was a defining moment in Judgement Day, and the reactions of each character showed the struggle of exchange in power and social normality. Tanner sees the black man and automatically assumes him to be “A South Alabama nigger if I ever saw one” (543) and is gleeful of the irony. Several futile attempts at engagement later, Tanner finally confronts the man. “I’m from New York City,” says the man, “…I’m not no preacher! I’m an actor” (545). Tanner still refers to him as preacher later that day, and is met with physical refutation, pushing him to the near brink of death.
Tanner grew up as a member of the ruling class- the whites. As a foreman, he was accustomed to being in power over blacks. He handled his workers strictly, threatening with the ever-presence of a sharp penknife and the promise to stick it in their gut instead of a wooden carving. However, one day he notices a large black straggler hanging around the edge of the saw mill. Not wanting his presence to distract his workers, Tanner approaches him with the initial plan of threatening him away with a racial slur. However, as he grows closer, he fears the man will become violent, and begins to whittle a pair of spectacles as a different approach. “You can’t see so good, can you, boy?” Tanner finishes the spectacles with wire, “Put these on. I hate to see anybody [sic] can’t see good.”
“What you see through those glasses?”
“See a man.”
“What kind of a man?”
“See the man who make theyseyer glasses.”
“Is he white or black?”
“He white! Yessuh, he white!”
“Well, you treat him like he was white.”
This first meeting with Coleman is the beginning stages of what later grows to a lasting friendship. Tanner gave Coleman the gift of seeing through a white privileged lens, and by asking him to racially define the white man before him, is also asking him to define himself in the social construction of race. Coleman, having not been defined before, puts himself as inferior to the white Tanner. However, O’Connor shows character development in Tanner as he ages, grows accustomed to and trusts Coleman, allowing the normal southern code to recede.
Judgement Day shows also how prevalent ‘othering’, the act of defining between ‘us’ civilized people and ‘them’ as the uncivilized, was in the south’s construction of race. Blacks, to the white supremacy of the south, are the ‘other’ that require handling, breaking, and tending, as though they are animal. “He was known to have a way with niggers… the secret of handling a nigger was to show him his brains didn’t have a chance against yours; then he would jump on your back and know he had a good thing there for life” narrates O’Connor about Tanner’s handling abilities (536). Tanner’s daughter shares this ideology with her father, saying to her husband, “It takes brains to work a real nigger. You got to know how to handle them” (532).