by Catherine Lenehan

Created on: October 02, 2010   Last Updated: October 04, 2010

O’Connor writes in a way to subtly portray hypocrisies of religion and society in the south.   Many of her characters are morally superior, but ignorant towards common decency.  They are judged on a moral hierarchy that is linked to their “ladylike” qualities.  

In an essay written by Stephen Sparrow entitled The“Innocents“of Flannery O’Connor, he states: “The stories O'Connor wrote are a valuable testament to a region that she once described as ‘no longer Christ centered but still Christ haunted.’ She saw the South as a region where most people lacked a central authority that unified faith, morals and liturgical practice, but with definite empathy, she saw those same people attempting to wrestle in various and sometimes absurd ways, with belief in the Redemption of Christ”  In he opening of the story foreshadows a detour in the families' future travels; “She wanted to visit…in east Tennesee and she was seizing at every chance to change Bailey’s mind” (O’Connor, 369).  Was it her plan to lead her family off the road to go where she wanted to go?  Her interaction with Red Sammy shows how she views what a good person really is: "‘Two fellers come in here last week….said they worked at the mill and you know I let them fellers charge the gas they bought? Now why did I do that?’ ‘Because you're a good man!’ said grandmother" (372).  She bestows the title good rather frivolously.

O’Connor is quoted as saying in a letter to novelist John Hawkes, that “I am much interested in this sort of innocent person who sets the havoc in motion” and Sparrow concludes “that there is no shortage of O'Connor characters who set the havoc in motion, whether by being mute bystanders or, on the surface at least, by being definitely and actively evil.”  One assumes the grandmother is good, and The Misfit is bad.  However, small hypocrisies and manipulations of the grandmother, and how great she feels she is, illustrates her inherent badness.  She, somewhat inadvertently, set in motion that caused the murder of her family and the denial of her belief in Christ, and her religious faith: “’Maybe [Christ] didn’t raise the dead.’” (379). It is The Misfit, the murderer, that displays more knowledge and insight into what goodness is, whether or not he practices it.  He concludes the story with a powerful statement: "She would of been a good woman…if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life" (379). Despite her self-proclaimed identification as a “lady” and religion—the grandmother is not a good woman. However, in the face of death she realized  what it took to be a good woman.  In her final moments, she sees The Misfit as her kin and sees the error in her ways.  

Learn more about this author, Catherine Lenehan.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.