Cosmology and Southern Gothic

Flannery O’Connor was born on March 25, 1925, in Savannah, Georgia. Her father died of Systemic Lupus when she was a teenager. She attended The University of Iowa where she studied writing and published her first short story “The Geranium”, in 1946. She wrote about religious and southern life. She wrote novels, but was best known her short stories. In 1964 after fighting it for more than 10 years she died of Lupus. Flannery O’Connor is considered one of the best short story authors of the 20th century. The family wants to take a trip somewhere exciting. There is a disagreement amongst the family to decide where to go. Bailey (the father) the grandmother’s son wants to take the family (the wife, the two kids (John and June) and the baby) to Florida. The grandmother doesn’t want to go and argues with them. To make her case, she mentions that there’s a dangerous criminal by the name of The Misfit is on the loose, and that he’s headed that way. In the book “A Good Man Is Hard To Find”, Flannery O’Connor shows that The Misfit’s intensity of his resentment at the world is the reason he is misunderstood. Whether it may be his lack of conscience, incriminating evidence against him, or if he can truly believe in god.

In Shirley Jackson’s short story “The Possibility of Evil” the literary movement, Southern Gothicism, is expressed through certain attributes that allow an easier way to further understand the story. Southern Gothicism became popular in American literature during the slave era to show the “evil” of the south that not all people could visibly see. Jackson selects characteristics for Adela to figuratively express specific elements that are directly linked to the Southern Gothicism movement.

The author that will be discussed is William Faulkner who wrote “A Rose for Emily”. He was from Mississippi and many of his works were related to southern culture and gothic writing style. Faulkner’s works such as ‘A Rose for Emily” and “The Sound and the Fury”.

Flannery O’Connor was an American author who often wrote about characters who face violent situations. These situations force the characters into a moment of crisis that awakens or alters their fate. Her short stories reflect her Roman Catholic faith and frequently discuss questions of morality and ethics. O’Connor’s Catholic upbringing influenced most of her short stories, often accumulating criticism because of her harsh portrayal of religion. O’Connor incorporates the experience of a moment of grace in her short stories to contribute to the meaning of her works and to represent her faith.

Flannery O´Connor is consider as one most influence Christian American writers of the XX century and author of the story revelator story “The Enduring Chill” as part of the book “Everything That Rises Must Converge.” Flannery O´Connor is known overall for being a Roman Catholic writer, who in her stories explores the complexity of morality and ethics through a Christian worldview. A faithful example of this work wrote a year before of his death is “The Enduring Chill,” a story developed in a Farm in the time of Slavery on The United States (Andretta). This Southern Gothic style story stablishes its plot mainly in the spiritual and corporal affection of the twenty-five years old prideful protagonist and Asbury Fox and the conflict with his sixteen years old mother. The story positions Asbury as the victim a villain of the story, that surrounded of pain looks for significant moment in his miserable life. However, in an unexpected final at the “deathbed” of Asbury, he ended up achieving the redemption by the grace of God through the Holy Ghost.

“John B McLemore lives in Shittown, Alabama,” Brian Reed quoted. Many people today can relate to some of the problems John faces in S-Town. Most of these problems are derived from southern gothic characteristics within the podcast. The podcast uses many different southern gothic characteristics in order to make it more interesting. Many of the examples of these characteristics are more modern so that they relate to our current society. S-Town is a piece of contemporary Southern Gothic Literature because of its use of social issues, irony, and outsiders.

The short story "Greenleaf" shows us some of the central themes of Flannery O'Connor's literary work.

Flannery O’Connor believed in the power of religion to give new purpose to life. She saw the fall of the old world, felt the force and presence of God, and her allegorical fictions often portray characters who discover themselves transforming to the Catholic mind. Though her literature does not preach, she uses subtle, thematic undertones and it is apparent that as her characters struggle through violence and pain, divine grace is thrown at them. In her story “Revelation,” the protagonist, Mrs. Turpin, acts sanctimoniously, but ironically the virtue that gives her eminence is what brings about her downfall. Mrs. Turpin’s veneer of so called good behavior fails to fill the void that would bring her to heaven. Grace hits her with force and

O’Connor’s short narrative also seems to present the theme of possible unbelievable change in an individual. For instance, it is quite strange that the old woman seems to sympathize with the same man, Misfit, who has just murdered all the members of her family and is also just about to kill her (Eder 47). This sudden and unimaginable transformation in the heart is certainly unusual and cannot just be accepted by the society. However, Flannery O’Connor’s could probably be using this situation to illustrate the role played by religion in making people acquire good morals. This could be associated with the author’s strong belief in Roman Catholicism and Christianity. In particular, the author seems to be driving to the fact that religion can make us good and help make us come into terms with some happenings that are not just unbearable in the society. This is definitely based on the Christian belief that the faulty can always be made faultless and that sinners are redeemed from their sinful ways by the blood of Jesus Christ (Eder 16). In the story, the old woman reaches out to Misfit as if he was her own son and tells him that he ought to know about Jesus Christ and he would be transformed. Such religious or Christianity-based connotations are a common features in Flannery O’Connor’s pieces of work. Based on this fact, we could argue that the author in her short tale wanted her readers to believe

In most of Flannery O’Connor’s short stories a number of characters have a hard time seeing an ultimate reality in their life. They tend to have a distorted grasp on reality but not all in the same way. In the story “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” the Misfit and the Grandmother are prime examples. The actions and the way of life of the Misfit and Grandmother are mostly due to the fact that they are living in an false reality where they are in their own little world, where in the Misfit’s world everything goes with no worry of repercussion in the Grandmother’s case she can do no wrong because she has a false perception of what is right.

Flannery O’Connor was fond of saying, “When in Rome, do as you done in Milledgeville.” O’Connor was born in Savannah, Georgia, but spent the bulk of her life in Milledgeville, and it is her Southern heritage that influenced her and made her writing extremely distinctive in the history that is American literature. As a Roman Catholic in the Protestant-majority South, she was often confronted with the differences between the surroundings and herself, a theme that often comes up in her writing. O’Connor was diagnosed with Lupus, an inherited disease that also killed her father, so she was constantly aware of her own impending death. It is because of this that so many of her fiction short stories have to do with death and the grace that

In Flannery O’Connor’s stories, many of her stories reflect on a common theme relating to Christianity and how the characters are reflected as supposed heroes even though some came off as evil and twisting plots. In many of her short stories, she reflects what she was brought up with which is the conflict with beliefs in the North and South, Old versus New views, Christianity, and Atheism. Stories such as “Good Country People” which reflected and played a huge part on religion, society and how she portrayed it.

Religion often takes a central theme in both Gothic literature and literature from The Romantic Movement. When these two literary genres combine, it is inevitable that religion will take an even more important role in the author’s expression. It follows that a novel with such commercial success in this century (Caleb Williams, Godwin, 2008) demonstrated the theme of religion. “Caleb Williams” attracted many negative reactions as many saw it as an affront to virtue, religion and government. The British Critic (1794) stated that “This piece is a striking example of the evil use which may be made of considerable talents…every gentleman is a hard-hearted assassin, or a prejudiced tyrant; every Judge is unjust, every Justice corrupt and blind.”

       As the tale begins we immediately can sympathize with the repressive plight of the protagonist.  Her romantic imagination is obvious as she describes the "hereditary estate" (Gilman, Wallpaper 170) or the "haunted house" (170) as she would like it to be.  She tells us of her husband, John, who "scoffs" (170) at her romantic sentiments and is "practical to the extreme" (170).  However, in a time

Flannery O’connor is one of the most shinning stars in American literature. Her distinct writing style makes her work recognizable and outstanding from other literature works. Many critics have commented on Flannery O’connor’s narrative voice. Louise Blackwell discovers Miss O’Connor often wrote according to southern tradition by using symbols in people’s daily life to convey the theme in a more profound way. From the perspective of the O’connor’s writing technique, Shirley Foster speaks highly of Miss O’connor’s works: O’connor’s skilled technique establishes the complicity between the readers and narrators. These two evaluations reveal the most important characteristics of Flannery O’connor’s works, directing readers to understand O’connor’s works much easier. Readers can understand the two critics’ comments by exploring the special narrative voices in Flannery O’connor’s well- known stories: “ Everything That Rises Must Converge” and “A Good Man is Hard to Find”.