Flannery O'Connors Literature Work - Research Paper Example

Flannery O'Connor’s Literature Work Mary Flannery O'Connor was born in March 25, 1925 and died in August 3, 1964. O'Connor was an American writer and essayist. She was an influential voice (O’Connor 01) in American literature. She wrote 32 short stories and two novels. O'Connor also did a series of reviews and commentaries. O'Connor wrote his literature work on the southern gothic style. She also based her work on southern regional settings as well as grotesque characters (O'Neill 01). This is because she was southerner and that where life and work revolved. Additionally, O'Connor work reflected her faith in Roman Catholic. Notably, her faith made her examine the societal ethics and morality or violence and religion in most of her work. In the year 1972, her complete stories on fiction won the United States national book award. Moreover, in the year 2009, the internet visitors name her the "Best of the National Book Awards". O'Connor was a real estate agent. She used to describe herself as the "pigeon-toed child with a receding chin and a you-leave-me-alone-or-I'll-bite-you complex." At six years old, for the first time, she identified herself among the celebrities when the Pathe News people filmed her with her trained chicken (Wood 01). The film was shown all over the nation making her famous. In the year 1037, her father was diagnosed with systemic lupus erythematosus disease (Desmond 01). He died of the disease on February 1, 1941. This left O'Connor with fifteen years of devastation. O'Connor attended her lower levels at the Peabody Laboratory School where she graduated in the year 1942. She then joined the Georgia State College for Women or the Georgia College and State University where she graduated in June 1945 with a degree in social science (O'Neill 01). In the year 1946, she was accepted into the Lowa writers’ workshop of the University of Lowa. O'Connor introduced herself into journalism studies for the first time in this institution. From this institution, she knew many prestigious critics and writers who were either teachers or lecturing of her program (Getz 75). Among others, O'Connor knew Andrew Lytle who was a renowned and many years editor of the Sewanee Review. Lytle was the first person to criticized O'Connor’s essays (Wood 01). Additionally, the workshop director Mr. Paul Engle read and commented on the initial drafts of what was later known as the wise blood. The comments and critic of her work by senior editors helped in developing O'Connor’s literature works especially in writing style and plot development. In the year 1951, O'Connor was diagnosed with the same disease as the father and was expected to die within five years, but died after fourteen years (Desmond 01). Despite O'Connor’s sheltered life, her literature work especially her writing reveals an uncanny gasp that concentrates on the nuance of human behavior. O'Connor was devoted to Roman Catholic life. She collected books that were related on the Catholic theology and at some points she lectured on faith and literature (O'Neill 01). Despite her health, she did travel long distances to give the same lectures. This explains why most her writing were religious or faith related. O'Connor has been considered the best among the foremost American short story writers. However, at some point, these acclaims may be surprising since most of her earlier works were marked as incomprehensive, perplexity, and distaste (Wood 01). Notably, these literatures were never friendly to the unsuspecting readers since the stories subjected them to disturbing repercussion of tense fiction that formed the main structures of O'Connor’s writings (Desmond 01). Nonetheless, perhaps the initial void of incomprehension later became an essential point of critical of appreciation. Most of O'Connor's stories have wide acceptance in the academic world. This may be because of their complexity and contradictory nature (O'Neill 01). The literal canonization and classification often aims at taming the startling efforts of O'Connor’s work that is especially achieved through the use of fiction. Most of O'Connor’s work has gotten attention nationally due to their criticism. Notably, her southern provenance has taken center stage in structuring her fiction and themes that naturally form part fecund groups of writers within the United States particularly in South America. Additionally, her violent thematic includes her writings in a literary-historical chimera which is a doubtful critical value describing the southern gothic. Being a woman writer, her feminist approach aims at providing convenience to the inroad fictions (Wood 01). However, she disarmingly said that she had "never think of qualities which are specifically feminine or masculine"(176). O'Connor was a socially isolated person, although she had a strong willed mother who made her a psychoanalytical assessor who was more reductive. For instance, she attempted severally to put off her social nature through her tenacious critical comments and periodic exaggeration of her psychological themes in her work and the fictions itself. The main significant trend in O'Connor’s criticism is the devout Roman Catholic faith that is based on an eminently protestant region. O'Connor seems to be thinking all through along her religious line thereby addressing religious concern in her work. She expresses thoroughness as she articulates prophetic zeal that is clearly seen among her characters (Desmond 01). This concept has made some of her work be used in the theological studies that abound among the early, as well as the present responses. Nonetheless, O'Connor’s fiction writing with true allegation of craftsmanship makes her fictitious work attract many readers (O'Neill 01). Moreover, the eschewing smug and categorizations are some of the readily expected of her work through the use of harsh effects that convey a harsh content that does not strain readers’ credulity unduly. In addressing her thematic areas especially the religion and faith, O'Connor often select different settings for that she could capture different audients. Most of her stories start, not as those with religious intent, but social stories. These settings often aim at attracting people differently. Notably, most of the O'Connor stories seem to revolve around same these regardless of the setting. For instance, “A Good Man Is Hard to find" and "Overview: “Revelation” are stories with totally different setting but call for salvation Overview…, 01). Mrs. Turpin is already a Christian who still needs salvation this is clearly manifested through the use of the young gal who reveals to her that she still needs true salvation. Additionally, through the way she addresses her issues and her concern about others needs cleansing. A Christian is supposed to be a concern about others, but in a positive way not Mrs. Turpin does. On the other hand, Misfit is introduced along the way as the family goes to Florida (O'Neill 01). From the onset of the story, no one could depict if the story could take that twist. In fact, anyone who reads the story for the first time may not know that Misfit’s actions will take the center stage of the story. It is sometimes crucial to understand O'Connor’s fundamentalism theological vision. Most of her work reveals her as a "solid belief in all the Christian dogmas" that she strategically uses to convey her vision by proving to the audients that there are ever obstacles that are virtually insurmountable to faith. However, at some points she educates readers on how they can sometimes pass or overcome these obstacles. O'Connor’s essays and public talks that are collected in a volume entitled “Mystery and Manners” provide evidence towards curbing O'Connor’s response to the readers that compensate to her attractions in her writing. In some of her work, O'Connor has used personal feelings or personal frame of reference to depict interpretive variation. In some of her programmatic essays among other internationalist remarks, she was compelled to revise some of these literatures especially to the introduction as a means of correcting her work to fit into literature world (Scott 201). At some point, she wrote apologies to her publisher "I would just like to prevent some of the far-out interpretations". This implies that some of her works were difficult to understand since they were mostly pegged on personal frame of understanding. Furthermore, these “wilder” interpretations seemed to be inevitable in most of her literature; therefore, the required superficial simplification (Getz 273). Most of the difficulties were pegged on the personal fiction and fictional comments. For instance, in her essay, “Demons": Intentionality and Literary Meaning in the Articial Nigger", she used e given the demanding and superficially simplistic nature of her fictional commitments: "One of the awful things about writing when you are a Christian is that for you the ultimate reality is the Incarnation, and nobody believes in the Incarnation; that is, nobody in your audience. My audience is the people who think God is dead" (Hardy 92)". Regardless of the misunderstandings, O'Connor used personal reflections with the intension to inkling his personal vision to the reader (O'Neill 01). Her repertoire of rhetoric strategies including allusion, analogy, symbolism, violent juxtaposition, and grotesque distortion among others were some of the estranging devices that were not well employed in her work Overview…, 01). Therefore, it was a necessity for these elements among other to be cultivated tuned to evade any attempt of blatant internationalist declaration. The presence of the weak strategies is an evidence of faulty narrative as per older day’s critical precepts. It is necessary to note that most content of O'Connor’s work demanded the use of fiction sometimes more than they required the use of the church. However, at some points, the extreme effects of over usage of fiction were not far from caricature (Scott 442). For instance, she portrayed “intellectuals" such as Rayber in the novel Tlie Violent Bear It Away or Sheppard in her story “The Lame Shall Enter First (Hardy 241)." In these stories, O'Connor was not even by herself comfortable with the writing styles used. At times, her use of unbending harshness towards proving ultimate reality and towards dramatizing her fiction only proved to stumbling block to many readers (Getz 142). Finally, it is vital to note that O'Connor maintained the sense of mystery in her writings. Notably, all fiction writers often present mystery through manners, grace, and nature all of which are well articulated by O'Connor. Mystery is occurrences that never be understood by human formula. O'Connor has deployed these elements to achieve her intended themes to the readers. She wanted everything to appear as a concrete truth or reality Overview…, 01). O'Connor has also employed the use and development of characters. However, in most of her stories, she has deeply revealed her characters since most of them have no distinctive features and speech that could reveal them. For instance, Misfit is not actually given time to develop his traits that the reader can literary identify him by character without O'Connor revealing their traits (Scott 271). In most cases, O'Connor starts by revealing real character and real personality of the character giving the reader less time to identify these characters by themselves. This is a weakness in O’Connor writings since she should allow readers to know the character by themselves. In other words, the story should help the reader to discover something without being told by the writer. O'Connor’s stories are well captivating, and most of the have good storylines. They have intended purpose making them focused stories. However, O'Connor’s writings have overused the religious massage. Nonetheless, O'Connor’s are educative and have moral and ethical values. In most case, O'Connor has used characters who think that they are good behaved, yet they have hidden characters. In essence, these traits are always true reflection of the society were people pretend especially to be good people, but in reality, there hidden traits are ever wanting. Additionally, O'Connor was concern with violence in society. According to her, these were generated from lack of faith. Christian life will shape the society since it will remind people of their evil behaviors. Notably, the setting in most of O'Connor's stories reflects most of the present societal settings. Work Cited "Overview: “Revelation”." Gale Online Encyclopedia. Detroit: Gale, 2012. Literature Resource Center. Web. 28 Nov. 2012. Desmond, John. "Flannery O'Connor's misfit and the mystery of evil." Renascence: Essays on Values in Literature 56.2 (2004): 129+. Literature Resource Center. Web. 28 Nov. 2012. Getz, Lorine M. Nature and Grace in Flannery O'connor's Fiction. New York u.a: Mellen, 1982. Print. Hardy, Donald E. The Body in Flannery O'connor's Fiction: Computational Technique and Linguistic Voice. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2007. Print. O’Connor, Flannery. “A Good Man Is Hard To Find.” Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and Writing. Ed. X. J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia. 11th ed. New York: Longman, 2010. 369-379. Print. O'Neill, Joseph. (2009), Touched by evil. The Atlantic Monthly, 303(5), 88-90,92,94,96. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/223085795?accountid=45049 Scott, R N. Flannery O'connor: An Annotated Reference Guide to Criticism. Milledgeville, Ga: Timberlane Books, 2002. Print. Wood, Ralph C. "Flannery O'Connor's witness to the gospel of life." Modern Age 47.4 (2005): 321+. Literature Resource Center. Web. 28 Nov. 2012. Read More