Comforts
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Electronic Criticism: Essays and Analysis On-line

Works On this Site

Comforts of Home has received correspondence regarding the validity of opinions about O'Connor's religious and racial views. Some of these exchanges have been productive and resulted in an editorial dialogue, while others have simply expressed personal affront. The administrators at Comforts of Home read all correspondence and welcome critical rebuttal, which at times we will publish on-site, however Comforts of Home is not a forum for material that deals solely with race, religion or politics unconnected with O'Connor and her work. If you take personal offense from the opinion (correct or incorrect) of any of our contributors, we will gladly forward your communications and allow you to discuss the matter directly.

Does escapist cinema function in a fictitious movie house? In his article "Beyond Belief: Faith and Escape in Literature of Mobility", Timothy McGrath compares the different presentations of the American landscape in Alfred Kazin's A Walker in the City and Flannery O'Connor's Wise Blood.

Sometimes the violent end an O'Connor character meets shocks readers, leaving them to wonder why tragedy permeates her fiction. In his essay "Light and Shadow", David Allen Cook uses O'Connor's short stories "A Good Man Is Hard to Find" and "The Lame Shall Enter First" to show that violence is simply the admission price religious pretenders must pay to discover Truth.

Stephen Sparrow, our friend from New Zealand, has been kind enough to share his work with Comforts of Home so that other readers can consider his thoughts on the theological implications of O'Connor's fiction.

Can a racist lawn ornament be the conduit of mercy and grace? Stephen Sparrow looks for an answer in "Blessed are the Merciful", an essay on O'Connor's favorite story "The Artificial Nigger".

What impact does physical imperfection have on the biblical message that the body is a temple of the Holy Ghost? Can a freak house the spirit of God? Stephen Sparrow looks at these questions using the story "A Temple of the Holy Ghost" and considers the implications of O'Connor's own encounter with disease in his essay "This is My Body".

Can a man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing hope to enter heaven, or is it easier for a bulldozer to pass through the eye of a needle? In "Under Mammon's Thumb", Stephen Sparrow considers the impact of Fortune's avarice in "A View of the Woods".

Novelist John Cheever once asked, "How can a people who do not understand love hope to understand death?" O'Connor took this question and turned it on its ear, asking, "How can a people who do not understand death hope to understand love?" Stephen Sparrow's essay "Death Where is Thy Sting?" seeks an answer to O'Connor's question through her short story "Greenleaf".

Somewhere between the nihilistic preachings of Hazel Motes' "church of truth without Jesus Christ Crucified", and the fundamentalist beliefs of a Baptist riverside healing lies a place where even a child can accept the grace of God. In "Getting Somewhere" Stephen Sparrow searches for this place amongst the pages of O'Connor's story "The River".

What happens when the rebellious child of a fundamentalist Christian is initiated to the "real world"? O'Connor bases her novel The Violent Bear it Away around this question, and Steven Sparrow finds within it the essence of the conflict between science and religion in "Illusions, Assertions, and Denials".

Did you hear the one about the nihilist Bible salesman and the woman with a wooden leg? It might sound like the setup for a joke, but O'Connor puts these two characters together in a barn loft in " Good Country People ", and the punch line involves the theft of more than just the aforementioned wooden leg. Want to know what Hulga Hopewell really looses? Then check out Stephen Sparrow's "Stamping Out Joy".

Can the things we make with our hands really bring us any closer to God? Do spires and crosses open the gates to heaven, or are they just golden calves? But then, maybe God can speak from something as earthly as a burning tractor. Consider how a simple tattoo takes on a whole world of meaning in "The Ultimate Heresy: the Heartless God in 'Parker's Back'".

The short essay "Flannery O'Connor and the Theology of Discontent" offers an analysis of "A Stroke of Good Fortune".

"What is it that makes O’Connor’s stories so alluring, so compelling and yet so incomprehensible to many first time readers?" Explore this question and ruminate on the realism in O'Connor's stories: "realism that is hinged to the mystery of evil and which presents God as the 'Inescapable Jesus'."

"The Enduring Mystery of Truth" deciphers the loaded language O'Connor employs in "The Enduring Chill".

Can you see the spark of good in the worst of humanity? In his latest article, "And the Meanest of them Sparkled", Stephen Sparrow examines " A Good Man is Hard to Find " for proof that O'Connor could see that spark, and she believed that God could also. 

"No Hell, No Dignity, No Hope", explores the interaction of pride and hope in "The Lame Shall Enter First".

Here's a riddle for you: what does spiritual purity have to do with pigs? If you can't think of the answer, perhaps you should read "And the Smug Shall Come Last", Stephen Sparrow's look at pride in the story "Revelation".

"A Cluster of Freaks or Diamonds?" examines how O'Connor wields her "grotesque" characters to grant us insight into our personal characters.

Take a look at "Wisdom: Simple or Idiotic" and delve into the literal and figural importance of sight in Wise Blood. See how O'Connor weaves religious vision and free will into a story about a man wearing a blue suit and a black, broad-brimmed hat.

Mr. Sparrow makes an intriguing connection between the historical background of "The Displaced Person" and the necessity of virtue in "No Place Like Home".

What exactly is the nature of innocence? Are children the only innocents, or is there more to the concept than a dictionary definition of freedom from guilt or sin? Perhaps these characters from ten O'Connor stories, will help you find an answer in "The 'Innocents' of Flannery O'Connor".

 

Distortion comes in many forms; distorted eyes cause poor vision, and distorted information causes poor judgment, but what is the price of a distorted sense of self? Brenda Brandon looks at the characters of " A Good Man is Hard to Find " to answer this question in her essay "The Price of Distortion"

Eddy Duhan was kind enough to share a poem/song he wrote entitled "Flannery's Place".

Brian Patterson considered how O'Connor uses the treeline as a spiritual symbol in her short fiction, and wrote about it in "Crossing the Black Line of Woods: A Contemporary Anagogical Perspective of O'Connor's Sentinel Line of Trees".

Works On Other Sites

Douglas Jones' article "Who's Afraid of Flannery O'Connor?" discusses why the typical Christian reader finds O'Connor's fiction distasteful and explains why her work shouldn't scare readers away.  

The February 4, 2007 edition of the New York Times included in its Travel section Lawrence Downes report on his trip to Milledgeville, offering highlights of the region as he went In Search of Flannery O'Connor.

In February of 2005, the Archbishop of Canterbury gave a series of lectures on Grace, Necessity and Imagination: Catholic Philosophy and the Twentieth Century Artist. The third in the series entitled "Flannery O'Connor: Proper Names" focuses on the artist and the love of God.

Gregory Wolfe's National Review opinion piece "In God's Image: The virtue of Creativity" takes a long look at the power of creative genius as approached by Aristotle, Wilde, Eliot, and as exemplified by O'Connor.

The following six articles all come from Sojourners, a Christian publication that spotlighted O'Connor back in 1994/1995. If you plan to cite these articles, you should probably send an e-mail, or call the magazine to find out volume and page numbers. (Sojourners requires a free registration to read the articles.)

.....Nature and Grace Flannery O'Connor and the healing of Southern Culture. Danny Duncan Collum.

.....A South Without Myths Alice Walker.

.....Obliged to See God. Julie Polter.

.....Stumbling Onto the Spirit's Signposts. Shane Helmer.

.....The Transfiguration of Time: Flannery O'Connor's disorienting fiction. David S. Cunningham.

Nina Butorac shared her own online critical resource The Sacramental Imagination and Catholic Literature (or, Flannery O'Connor and those other guys) with me, and I think it's a marvelous place. In Nina's own words, the page focuses on the "Catholic 'analogical' perspective of writers such as Flannery O'Connor, Thomas Merton, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Graham Greene, Walker Percy and G.K. Chesterton, with a little Albert Camus thrown in for some atheistic spice."

Michael Bryson's online text Reclaiming the Self: Transcending the Fragmentation of the Individual Subject contains a chapter on "Transcendence Through Transgression and Kenosis: Sin as Salvation and Self-Emptying in Flannery O'Connor's Wise Blood." The O'Connor analysis stands on its own, but treat yourself and read the whole text.

Rasha El-Haggan points out some of the signs O'Connor erects for her readers in "Forshadowing Flannery O'Connor's A Good Man Is Hard To Find". While you're there, be sure to check out Rasha's other essays on prominent literary figures in her "writings" section.

Patrick Galloway's The Dark Side of the Cross analyzes some of the elements that make O'Connor's short fiction so special.

In his essay in 14850 Magazine, Hanns Bowers takes a look at the racial themes prevalent in Everything that Rises Must Converge.

Paul Erlandson reveals the profound impact that Dorothy Sayers and Flannery O'Connor have had on his understanding of Christian art in Mystery, Manners, and the Mind of the Maker.

Susan Hagen Makes some interesting connections between O'Connor's work, and literature from the middle ages.

While searching through the Catholic Educators' Resource I located some excellent articles on O'Connor and her writing.

A Good Writer is Hard to Find Ronald Weber takes a look at the importance of O'Connor's religious faith in her writing in this bio-critical essay.

Flannery O'Connor Banned J. Bottom points out the irony of a bishop banning O'Connor from a Catholic school and uses it as a springboard for an exploration of what Catholicism means in the 21st century.

Flannery O'Connor: Stalking Pride Amy Welborn searches for O'Connor's resting place in the heart of Georgia, and finds much more than a gravesite.

Chris Heller has written an interesting paper on Wise Blood. which examines the symbology of Hazel Motes' Essex. You'll find the paper at the bottom of the page as "Essex".

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