Anna Dabek: The Impact of the Mysterious Force on the Degenerate Characters’ Transformation in the Selected Short Stories by Flannery O’Connor [PDF]

Essay from the year 2008 in the subject American Studies – Literature, grade: A, , course: American Literature, language: English, abstract: The readers who are familiar with Flannery O’Connor’s fictional world might probably admit that it resembles a gallery of freaks deformed both in body and spirit. Her short stories contain numerous portrayals of aberrant behaviour as well as frequent descriptions of pathological states. Moreover, the author acquaints the reader with her characters’ predicament and its consequences. It seems that an inherent element of these protagonists’ abnormal behaviour is their total lack of control over their lives. Although they believe, they are capable of holding their fate in their own hands, their impotence invariably becomes apparent. O’Connor’s characters suffer defeat attempting to wield influence on their actions and end up entangled in the destructive vortex they cannot defy. These struggles often lead to death. Alternatively, the protagonists experience the state of death-in-life. The American writer’s stories portray the figure whose existence is submitted to the supremacy of a mysterious force. This inexplicable energy contributes to the alleviation of the character’s desperate state, induced by his abnormal conduct.

How does the aberrant behaviour manifest itself and how does the afflicted hero eliminate chaos from his life? First of all, the significance of death in the protagonist’s metamorphosis is worth mentioning. Patrick Galloway portrays O’Connor’s characters’ death as a positive process. Her short stories abound with violent and shocking scenes of death. For instance, the Polish immigrant, Guizac, is crushed by a tractor in “The Displaced Person”; Mrs May, the main heroine of “Greenleaf”, meets her end being impaled on the bull’s horn; the grandmother gets shot by the serial killer in “A Good Man is Hard to Find” and two main heroes of “A View of the Woods” – Mr Fortune and his granddaughter beat each other to death. Appalling and useless as the brutality of these scenes appears, it fulfils an essential function.