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Mary Flannery OConnor

notes

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Born March 25, 1925

Savannah, GA

died. Aug 3, 1964

Lupus

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:FlanneryOConnor.jpg

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Education

Georgia State Collegefor Women

MFA State Universityof Iowa-

Iowas Writers

Workshop

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:UI-seal.gifhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Gcsu-logo.gif

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Career

2 Novels

32 Short Stories

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Settings

modern South

Country (vs. city)

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Opposing Forces

Modern Secular (science, social programs,progress)

versus

God-centered spiritual world (sin andsalvation)

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Characters

Protagonists

Women middle-aged, middle-class, alone

Well-established view of themselves, humannature, & the world

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Movement of story

Toward a moment protagonist recognizesfalseness of his/her views.

Catalyst is other character Manly Pointer

The Misfit

Final Redemptive MomentBreak forth and wash the slime from the

earth!

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Nature Imagery

Reflects humankind in its base nature.

Never Sentimental-Refuse to do Pretty

Trees are sullen Threadbare

Clouds are indifferent

Humans are large bug wheezing horse

sheep crab goat buzzard

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Reasonable Use of the

UnreasonableA person in a violent situation reveals

those aspects of his/her character that

he/she will take with him/her into eternity. These moments are when the reader can see

the soul of the character.

Dasein death represents the momentwhen a mans existence becomescomplete being there

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Concept of Dread

Kierkegaard-mans attempt to replacethe Absolute with himself is pathetic and

comical but never tragic. Tragic is for thereligious

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Compassion

Gives characters opportunity of receiving grace

Grace often comes at moment of grisly death

the grandmothers head cleared for an instant she murmured, Why youre one of my babies.Youre own of my own children! then she gets 3bullets in the chest.

Self- Knowledge can be a curse- faced with thepathetic, wasted life they cant deny

stripped bare and flogged by Truth

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Mystery

Spiritual Principle

There are certain things that we are simply

not meant to know.Accept the Paradox

Misfits Speech pg 5 and 6

Represented as Distortion in her writing Unlikely occurrences, yet not beyond the

scope of possibility.

Revelation

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Balances Realistic and Anagogical

Anagogical- mystical interpretation,detects allusion to heaven or afterlife.

(Often hard to extrapolate the anagogicalsignificance)

Grandmother recognizes that she is tied to the

Misfit in a bond of mystery, says the first honestthing in her life, and is shot.

Reader commits the Sin of Pride

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Style

Southern Gothic- (not grotesque)

Writing is stark, Spartan, dour, steady,

something is bubbling beneath the lid Takes on Character point of view in the

narrative. (The omniscient 3rd person

narrator takes on the voice of thecharacter) He didnt have a natural sunny disposition like

she did and trips made him nervous.

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Symbolic Names

Usually a mockery of the person

Often religious

Joy Hopewell= joyless, hopeless, unwell

Manly Pointer= points the way

Mary Grace=

Obadiah Elihue- prophet and friend of Job

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Thematic Elements

Displacement

Freaks

Serve as an example for both the folly of denyingreligion AND as Christological figures themselves

Peacocks

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Facing Death- the motivational engine that

drove her stories. (about Good Man The heroine of the story,

the Grandmother, is in the most significantposition life offers the Christian. She is facing

death.

Need for Grace

Violence is strangely capable of returning mycharacters to reality and preparing them toaccept their moment of grace.

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