Flannery OConnor: Annotated Bibliography

Ciuba, Gary M.Desire, Violence & Divinity in Modern Southern Fiction: Katherine Anne

Porter, Flannery O'Connor, Cormac McCarthy, Walker Percy. LSU Press, 2007.

This book is helpful in understanding the role that violence plays in OConnors fiction. There is a violent confrontation in Everything That Rises and there is a moment of passion in Good Country People that ends with theft. Both stories leave the reader with many questions, and Ciuba helps to explain the framework that one can use to explain OConnors fiction in order to make sense of it. The book explores the themes of desire, violence, and divinity that are related in this southern fiction and that permeate the narratives of these authors. Ciuba uses the paradigm of mimetic violence that was developed by critic Ren Girard, and with that he looks at how individual human nature is shaped by environmental influences and how these authors expose the roots of violence in southern culture. He says that violence in her works is usually indicative of a moment of grace. The idea is that her characters have such hardened hearts that Gods grace cannot get through to them barring some act of violence. This would be echoed in her later works as well, particularly, The Violent Bear It Away, but it is also useful in understanding her stories Good Country People and Everything That Rises, since both deal with violence and grace in one form or another.

Fitzgerald, Sally & Robert (ed.). Flannery OConner in Mystery and Manners. New York:

Noonday, 1970.

This collection of essays edited by Sally and Robert Fitzgerald provides a comprehensive analysis of O'Connor's works. The book sheds light on O'Connor's use of mystery and manners in her stories, including how one can make sense of the moment of grace in stories like Good Country People and Everything That Rises Must Converge. It shows that for OConnor, these stories are all about grace doing some work in the human soul. The essays thus give great insights into O'Connor's characters,...…that is seen in Good Country People, but the same ideas certainly apply to Everything That Rises.

Sullivan, Walter. "Flannery O'Connor, Sin, and Grace: Everything That Rises Must Converge."

Hollins Critic 2.4 (1965): 1-10.

Sullivan's article connects the ideas of sin and grace in OConnors story Everything That Rises. This is one of the most explicit articles on this matter, as it discusses how the story is very much about sin and the need for Gods grace in the soul. The author shows that the conflict is really about grace getting into the soul of the main characterunexpectedly. In this sense, the story is really about the boynot the mother. She knows where she is going; it is the boy who is lost and in need of real grace. Thus, the article examines the moral dilemmas faced by the characters and how they arrive at the point of departure, where they must come face to face with the moment of grace. This will be helpful in explaining the endings of…