History Creator / FlanneryOConnor

** The protagonist of the novel Wise Blood is named Hazel Motes, likely referencing the King James Version translation of Matthew 7:3, in which Christ says, "And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?" The relevance of this verse is that it ties into the recurring theme of blindness vs. vision; for example, the blind PreacherMan Asa Hawks [[spoiler: later turns out to have been faking his blindness the whole time]], and at the end of the story, Hazel [[spoiler: actually blinds himself and then begins doing penance for his sins.]]

Mary Flannery O'Connor (March 25, 1925 – August 3, 1964) lived in rural Georgia in the middle of the 20th century and wrote two collections of extraordinarily realistic short stories and two novels in the course of her very short life (she died in 1964 at the age of 39). From the mindset of her deep Catholic faith; her intimate and perceptive knowledge of the culture, mores, and personalities of the Deep South; and shaded by her long battle with lupus (which eventually killed her), she wove tales replete with deeply dysfunctional, highly flawed, and bizarre characters, many adhering to an unconventional or twisted form of fundamentalist Christianity. And many who died [[RunningGag realistic]] deaths.

-->--'''Flannery O'Connor'''

Though she was quite the orthodox and theologically sound Catholic believer, and a "fish out of water" in the mostly Protestant (and what she called "Christ-haunted") South, her cultish preachers, itinerant evangelists, and lay people were, in her mind, closer to the unadulterated core of the Christian faith than most "institutional" believers. This has often proved befuddling to more secular readers who tend to see these people as mere buffoons in contrast to the more level-headed liberal and irreligious characters, only to learn that, in O'Connor’s mind, the "freaks" were the "heroes."

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*** Given O'Connor's unapologetic Roman Catholicism, it's plausible that the Parker's wife's downfall is her [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iconoclasm iconoclasm]], given the fact that she reacted so rabidly to the Byzantine Christ image on Parker's back, as said image is a quintessential Christian icon.

* AffablyEvil: The Misfit in "A Good Man is Hard to Find." Even though he [spoiler: kills off the entire family by the end of the story], he is quite polite, apologizing to the Grandmother for his lack of proper attire.

* DeepSouth: Only one of O'Connor's stories takes place outside the South, and the main characters of that one are transplanted Southerners anyway.

* DumbIsGood: "Everything That Rises Must Converge" deals with a conflict between an "enlightened" young man and his more down-to-earth mother. The young man turns out to be an infantile hypocrite who justifies his pettiness with his "education." Some ValuesDissonance may come into play, too, since the relatively sympathetic mother happens to be pretty blatantly racist.
** YMMV: The mother's racism is not downplayed or excused, and readers can understand why her son finds her difficult to deal with.

* EnfantTerrible: There are so many dreadful little monsters in her short stories [[spoiler: Steal from you? check. Burn down your farm? check. Talk your son into hanging himself? brrr. check.]]

* EsotericHappyEnding: O'Connor famously insisted that she was a writer of comedies. Yes, her protagonists have a habit of losing everything they ever thought they needed or valued—their possessions, their dignity, their self-image, even their lives. They may end up ridiculous, humiliated, wounded or dying ... but stripped of all false dignity, self-deception, and internal barricades, open at last to the [[GoodIsNotNice onslaught of God's grace]].

** The Misfit, from "A Good Man is Hard to Find", is a dangerous, nihilistic atheist. He decided at an early age that if Jesus never died on the cross, then there's no reason to do anything at all but enjoy himself the only way he knew how: [[{{Anvilicious}} killing]]. The story may have been a reaction to the rise of existentialism in literature.

* FatBastard: In "A Hard Man is Good to Find," Bobby Lee (one of The Misfit's two henchmen). Really though, it could be applied to Bailey and John Wesley as well.

Though her stories were full of symbolism and metaphor, O'Connor had little patience for those who tried to over-analyze what she saw as the clear message of her work. She was once asked, about her short story "A Good Man is Hard to Find," [[WildMassGuessing "what is the meaning of the Misfit's hat?"]] [[WhatDoYouMeanItsNotSymbolic The question both confused and amused her.]] [[ShrugOfGod "To put on his head,"]] she replied.

* NWordPrivileges: Prolific use of the n-word in dialogue, but as a realistic depiction of the vernacular of the era and region. Even makes the title of one of her short stories ("The Artificial Nigger").

** The girl in "The Life You Save May Be Your Own" is sweet, blue-eyed and blonde, but she's also mentally handicapped and she can't talk, she just makes weird grotesque noises. Her older mother tries to marry her off to a guy who came to their farm and was hired as a temporary worker.

* RacistGrandma: Played very seriously in "Everything That Rises Must Converge", which centers around a fifty-some year old man taking his elderly mother on a bus ride to the YMCA. While on the bus, the old woman condescendingly offers a little black boy a penny, and gets struck with a heavy purse and insulted by the boy's mother. After getting off the bus, the woman's son confronts her about her racism and she is implied to have a stroke in response.

* RacistGrandma: Played very seriously in "Everything That Rises Must Converge", which centers around a fifty-some year old man taking his elderly mother on a bus ride to the YMCA. While on the bus, the old woman condescendingly offers a little black boy a penny, and gets called on it by the boy's mother. After getting off the bus, the woman's son confronts her about her racism and she is implied to have a stroke in response.

Flannery O'Connor lived in rural Georgia in the middle of the 20th century and wrote two collections of extraordinarily realistic short stories and two novels in the course of her very short life (she died in 1964 at the age of 39). From the mindset of her deep Catholic faith; her intimate and perceptive knowledge of the culture, mores, and personalities of the Deep South; and shaded by her long battle with lupus (which eventually killed her), she wove tales replete with deeply dysfunctional, highly flawed, and bizarre characters, many adhering to an unconventional or twisted form of fundamentalist Christianity. And many who died [[RunningGag realistic]] deaths.

* HollywoodAtheist: There are a few of these in her work, to the point where you know that any character who's got more than a high school education is almost certain to get a serious dose of BreakTheHaughty by the end.

* MeaningfulName: A good many of her characters have symbolic names; some subtle, many blatantly so.

Her novel ''Literature/WiseBlood'' has its own page.


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!!Associated Tropes:

* DeadpanSnarker: Flannery O'Connor herself, as well as many of her characters.
* DeathEqualsRedemption: From the woman herself: "Lots of people die in my stories, but nobody gets hurt."

* InfantImmortality: Though "offscreen," this is subverted in [[spoiler: "A Good Man Is Hard To Find." Three times.]]
** Also subverted in [[spoiler: "A View of the Woods"]] and [[spoiler: "The Lame Shall Enter First"]].

* KillEmAll: "A Good Man Is Hard To Find," natch.

* RedemptionEqualsDeath: In "A Good Man is Hard to Find," the grandmother in a genuine moment of kindness calls the Misfit one of her own children and touches him on the shoulder. [[spoiler: He immediately shoots her in the chest three times. Seeing as she may have died in a state of grace, however, this may also be an example of DeathEqualsRedemption.]]

* CosmicHorrorStory: The ethos behind her work, that Faith can be horrifying and even damaging to Human sanity and yet is vital to the survival of the human spirit actually manages to turn Christianity itself into something that's almost Lovecraftian.
** Although there are some that say that is ''exactly'' what Christianity (and by extension, Judaism) are ''supposed'' to be; consider the [[EldritchAbomination descriptions of God and the angels]] in Literature/TheBible to get an idea.

* BreakTheHaughty: This is the central trope of nearly every single O'Connor story and novel, and--in her theology--one of God's central missions concerning us. It would be easier to list her works that ''don't'' open with a proud, absurdly self-concerned protagonist, and that ''don't'' end with the same protagonist broken, pitiful, ridiculous, maybe even dying ... but stripped of false dignity, self-deception, and internal barricades, open at last to the terrible incursion of God's grace.
* CosmicHorrorStory: The ethos behind her work, that Faith can be horrifying and even damaging to Human sanity and yet is vital to the survival of the Human Spirit actually manages to turn Christianity itself into something that's almost Lovecraftian.

** Also subverted in [[spoiler: "A View of the Woods."]]

* ExecutiveMeddling: One of the only adaptations of her work O'Connor got to view first-hand in her lifetime was a dramatized version of the short story "The Life You Save May Be Your Own" on CBS's ''Schlitz Playhouse''. Between the [[StuntCasting horrible miscasting]] of Creator/GeneKelly(!) as the lead, and the [[RevisedEnding revision of the ending]] to make it more palatable, it was a sure bet O'Connor would be mortified. "The best thing I can say is that it conceivably could have been worse," she wrote to a friend. "Just conceivably."

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