Literary Analysis of “Everything That Rises Must Converge”

Literary Analysis of “Everything That Rises Must Converge”

Flannery O' Connor's short story “Everything That Rises Must Converge” is about racial judgment in the south in the 1960's. O' Conors main focus in this story is how the white middle class viewed and treated people from different races in the 1960's. The story is an example of irony, redemption as well as a struggle of identity among the characters. The main characters in O'Connor's story are Julian an aspiring writer, who works as a typewriter salesmen, and his mother who is a low-middle class racist white woman who has strong views about thvxe African-American race. Both Julian and his mother are great depictions of the white mindsets of racial integration in the 1960's in which full equality for African-Americans was a new concept.

Julian is from a rich slave owning family who used to live in a rich mansion, even though now she lives in a poor neighborhood and struggles with money ;She makes this apparent when she mentions selling her new purple hat for she could pay their gas bill. She was extremely prideful of her heritage and who her family once was and the fact they owned slaves; she made sure she reminded Julian that his great-grandfather had “a plantation and two hundred slaves” (436) . This comes into play and reveals some of the reasons that his mother is so racist and struggles to show any decency to the African-American people near her, making remarks such as “I see we have the bus to ourselves” (439) in reference to there only being white people on the bus. She also takes pride that her son graduated college and she mentions it every chance that she gets to other people.

Julian see's himself as superior to his mother, mai...

... middle of paper ...

...is professing that he is ’not dominated by his mother.’ his very being, in fact, seems little more than a reaction to his perception of hers” (Wyatt 4). Wyatt, touches on the fact that he is only truly the way he is towards the opposite race in reaction to his mother, he isn't truly caring for them as individual people yet as a weapon to strike anger in his mother.

Another example of situational irony comes when Julian's mother sits next to the black boy on the bus. Even though she was undeniably racist she had a spot in her heart for children, she labeled them all as “cute” and she placed black children in a even “cuter” category. Julian's mother attempts to play peek-a-boo with the child and the child's mother gets upset and yells at the boy. Julian's mother is trying to be kind to the boy yet his mother doesn't want him to talk to the white lady.