O’Connor, Flannery´s The River: Child Abuse Theme

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Recommended: Critical analysis of flannery o'connors work

Child abuse is something that is very apparant in the world but ids something that people find awkward to talk about. Flannery O’connors short story “The river” talks about a young boy Harry who isnt taken care of very well and has a hard life. Harry is taken out of his familiar city life, to an unfamiliar country life and quickly learns that what he knows isnt how the real world is. Harry notices little things in the world around him. Harry notcices the beauty of the sky, the sun and the birds flying all around in the sky.

Harry’s parents don’t really know how to raise a child. The spend thier days partying and drinking. Harry is mentally abused and pohysically abused. He has no real diet and the food that he eats he just has find it and whatever looks good he eats. He doesnt take life seriously because his parenst don’t take life seriously. Because of this Harry really doesnt know how to be a real child and how to act. He takes life as a joke and doesnt think that anything actually serious, and orginially he told everyone that his name was Bevel. When Harry arives at the river for his bapatism he meets a very strict preacer and Harry doesnt know how to talk to him, harry says,
The preacher didn’t smile. His bony face was rigid and his narrow gray eyes reflected the almost colorless sky. There was a loud laugh from the old man sitting on the car bumper and Bevel grasped the back of the preacher’s collar and held it tightly. The grin had already disappeared from his face. He had the sudden feeling that this was not a joke. Where he lived everything was a joke. From the preacher’s face, he knew immediately that nothing the preacher said or did was a joke.(O’Connor167)
At that point Harry relized that what he was doing an...

... middle of paper ...

...s, and everyone around him. He norices the little things around him and all the changes in the preacers eyes that lets Harry know what to expect and how to react, althogh he doesnt actually understand what is going on. The preacher wasnt very cler with Harry so Harry died, but by Harry dieing is it actaully better for him to be leaving that lifestyle of child abuse, and neglagt from the people who shpiuld be loving and caring for him. Was he better off dieing than returning to that home? Are children who live in similair homes now a days and runaway from it better off? That is a question that many people ask each other everyday.

Works cited
O’Connor, Flannery.”The River.”
The Complete Stories. New York:Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1977.
157-174. Print.

"A Reaction to Flannery O'Connor's Short Story, "The River" Yahoo Contributor Network. Web. 15 Feb. 2014

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