Point of View in 'Everything that Rises Must Converge'

Moving from a childlike bliss to an awakening of the world's prejudice, the author makes the words take on flesh. The story is made alive as she breathes life into a time that is unpleasant yet not void of hope. "The hush-hush magic time of frills and gifts and congratulations" disappeared when they were told the cold hard `truth' of their fate that some white man had already decided for them.

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

Flannery O'Connor's "Everything That Rises Must Converge" depicts a stifling mother-son relationship in which the conflict is never resolved, or even acknowledged. This relationship is a metaphor which describes the transition from the Old South, with its inherent values used to justify slavery and segregation, to the New South, striving for justice based on equality. Mrs, Chestney (old South) and her son Julian (New South) represent, on an individual scale, the interactions of their corresponding constituencies, "'The world is a mess everywhere... I don't know how we've let it get in this mess", states Mrs, Chestney on the subject of segregation,

"Everything That Rises Must Converge" also uses its setting to explore place and heritage to give us better insight into the actions and feelings of the characters. Julian, living in a poor neighborhood with his mother, shortly after the integration of blacks to public transportation, struggles to get his mother to understand that the world has changed. No longer are there huge plantations with hundreds of slaves, in fact "there are no more slaves." Once fashionable neighborhoods, like the one in

O’Connor uses the limited omniscient point of view in the story so that the reader learns more

Flannery O’Connor’s, “Everything That Rises Must Converge,” takes place in the 1960’s South during a politically-heated time of integration and social rights. The story follows Julian Chestny, his lower-middle class mother, and their supposedly differing views on the issue of race. Through the use of symbolism and by creating a foreboding tone, O’Connor sheds light on the themes of race, how different generations react to change, and false superiority. O’Connor utilizes Ms. Chestny's hat and the penny she offered to Carver in order to symbolize race and the relations between those of different races. Ms. Chestny invests a whopping seven dollars and fifty cents on a hat that causes her emotional turmoil and leads to her fretting, “Maybe I shouldn't have paid that for it.

“Everything That Rises must converge”, by Flannery O’ Connor is sometimes considered a comical but also serious tale of a grown man named Julian, who lives with mother, who happens to be your typical southern woman. The era unfolds in a couple years after integration begins. Throughout the story, O’Connor impresses us with her derived message in which people often resist to growing away from bigotry towards self-awareness and love for all humankind, which is so necessary for life to converge in equality. O’Connor has a distinctive style of writing that expresses this message through characterization, conflict and literary devices.

Short Fiction Essay: Everything that Rises Must Converge Flannery O’Connor’s hard-hitting short story, “Everything that Rises Must Converge” gives a detailed image of passengers riding on a public bus during the Civil Rights Era. The story develops around protagonist, Julian, and his narcissistic and prejudice mother, Mrs. Chestny. While walking to the bus stop together, Julian has become fed up with his mother and wants teach her a lesson. Hoping to prove to her that the South she grew up in is not the South that she lives in today, he tries to interact with two African American passengers. O’Connor uses simple and ordinary objects, such as the city bus, Mrs. Chestny’s hat, and a coin throughout her short story to show their symbolic irony.

In this Article, Douglas Rowlet analyzes Flannery O’Connor’s use of imagery and symbolism within, “Everything That Rises Must Converge.” Rowlet speaks of the hat as being a symbolism of a sort of equality, as well as the bus. Both the hat as well as the bus are seen of a sort of necessary to Flannery’s depiction of the up and coming equality of African Americans, as well as the depreciation of Julian’s mother social standing. Dr. Douglas Roulette was a professor at Houston Community College and is a well respect writer. He was promoted to Dean of Houston Community, yet continues to focus on overseeing the English Literature Department.

In the story “Everything that rises must Converge”, author Flannery O’Connor demonstrates how people become what they hate the most, the man in the story despises his racist mother so much because he too is a racist, even though he may not know it or want to admit it. The man in the story constantly does everything in his power to convince her that it is wrong. He wants to punish his mother so much that he picks up her racist attributes and soon starts to punish himself by becoming the thing he hated the most.

How can the two authors of “Everything That Rises Must Converge” and “Everyday Use” use figurative language and dialogue to develop a common central theme of the stories.

Many people realize sometime in their lives that generations have very different ways of expressing themselves. Rudimentary ideas get passed down throughout generations, but the ways in which people interact change due to the different to social differences. In today’s world people go about their day using smartphones to text and call people. This was something that previous generations were not able to do, thus creating a change in the ways that people express themselves to others. This idea is exactly what Flannery O 'Connor was writing about throughout “Everything that Rises Must Converge”. O’Connor uses the theme of racism to emphasise the similarities and differences between Julian and his mother’s generations, but how they still are mentally very similar.

Julian believes he is "too intelligent for success." (281) Some might argue this means Julian believes himself to be so superior to others that he will be denied the chance to succeed. However, it could also be argued that although Julian seems to be full of himself, he has very low self-esteem. Why does this matter? Low self-esteem could explain much of his behavior, towards his mother and African-Americans. The "contempt and spite," Liz mentions does not mean Julian is a completely contemptible character, but that his self-esteem is so low he must demean others to feel important. Julian comes across as a rude, disrespectful, ungrateful son, all of this is true, but if Julian had higher self-worth he could be the educated, intelligent, clear

Everything is affected by time and each generation that passes through it. How we raise our children will continue to flow into how they raise their children and so on. It is a common theme in literature to use the motifs of time and the use of family lineage to bond society over conflicting issues. Both Flannery O’Connor and Martin Espada highlight in their works of literature how time and generations impact society and how other people in a general populous will be rigid with their beliefs. More specifically, in “Everything that Rises Must Converge” and “Litany at the Tomb of Fredrick Douglas” the pieces show how racism is affected by different time periods (and each generation in each time period) by showing how the different characters

In "Everything that Rises Must Converge", a mother who was brought up with different morals that do not apply to the way the world is in their present, dies due to various causes. O'Connor meant the mother's death to act as a lesson for Julian who as close minded as his mother was, must learn to converge or end up like his mother who was killed due to the physical engagement with the black lady as well as their unhealthy relationship.