• Journal of English Language & Literature
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• v.60 no.2
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• pp.295-314
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• 2014

Flannery O'Connor's stories have garnered critical attention for her religious views. Thus, the interpretation of violence in her fiction has been mainly associated with salvation in her characters. Nonetheless, O'Connor was aware of the historical facts surrounding white supremacist activities in the American South. In its revenge narrative, O'Connor's story "The Displaced Person" (1955) unveils subtle layers of politics from the Ku Klux Klan as well as her white characters' views of race and immigrants. O'Connor used a voice of reserve due to her minority position as woman and Catholic. Although she was a white female, she lived within repressive Southern religiosity. Racism prevailed beneath Southern chauvinism and patriotism. The conflicts in the South display the violent aspects of the "Invisible White Supreme Empire." After the World Wars, devalued whiteness elicited atrocities against socially upward mobile African Americans, foreigners and Catholics. This article explores the convoluted issues of racial hierarchy, miscegenation, and xenophobic reactions in the South.

• Journal of English Language & Literature
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• v.54 no.4
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• pp.511-530
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• 2008

In "A Good Man Is Hard to Find," Flannery O'Connor describes a striking journey of a family, in which all the members dramatically get killed. Through the tragic death of Bailey's family, O'Connor evokes the reader to think about life and the life after death. Growing up in the communities of Catholicism and Protestantism, O'Connor herself had agonized with the same question between the two types of Christian belief throughout her life. In the story, O'Connor embodies her anguish with the major characters and questions the reader about the meaning of Christian salvation. More specifically, Bailey's family represent the people who get lost in life. They live without any direction and purpose. Red Sammy and his wife, on the other hand, provide travellers with rest, food, and the necessaries. The Tower is a shelter of travellers in life; however, it is not everlasting but temporary. The Misfit, exemplifying religious stragglers, has been completely frustrated with the variance of Christian salvation theories, and no longer practices the religion but knows enough to justify his cruel behaviors. Finally, the grandmother is the manipulator and opportunist of the religion. All those characters are fragments of human characters and their life - obscene and transitory. In the story, there is little God's grace on the surface even though the writer claims "all my stories are about the action of grace." Nonetheless, the reader should be able to identify with those characters because they are the mirror images of themselves. While visualizing the characters, O'Connor wants the reader to have a moment to think about the "Righteousness," and ultimately to seek out God's grace that she essentially wishes to show the reader. Instead of showing God's grace directly, O'Connor ultimately leads the reader to consider about God and the grace as she/he reads the work.