Author Analysis on Flannery O'Connor
Author Analysis: Flannery O’Connor
As a Catholic author, Flannery O’Connor had as much passion for her faith as for her writing. She was an accomplished and influential novelist who also composed ample short stories prior to her early death at age 39. An only child, O’Connor was raised by her parents, Regina and Francis O’Connor in Milledgeville, Georgia (“Bookrags” Online). She persistently pursued her literary work, publishing her first short story, “The Geranium”, at the age of 21. O’Connor attended the Georgia State College for Women, received her Masters of Fine Arts and just a year later, she published her first novel Wise Blood (“Books and Writers” Online).
Tragically and suddenly, her life was altered and her writing career interrupted when she was diagnosed with lupus in 1950, the same disease which took her father’s life a few years prior. This disease limited O’Connor to the confinement of her mother’s dairy farm. Despite her growing ailment, she continued to write for two hours each day. This illness tested her faith and regardless of her affliction she never lost hope. O’Connor used her literary talent to express her strong Catholicism and discomfort with living in a “religionless age”. She honestly believed there was a crisis of faith and devoted her life to expressing the need for a conversion of values among people of her time (O’Connor 2).
With her words “to the hard of hearing you shout, for the almost-blind you draw large and startling figures,” Flannery O’Connor explains her literary style (O’Connor). She feared without the bold approach of grim situations and ridiculous characters, her audience would miss her true messages which she felt vitally needed to be understood. She wrote during The Modern literary period and through common speech and ordinary settings, O’Connor presented comically unrealistic circumstances in hope of somehow portraying her concerns (1-2). Despite the different characters and conditions, her style is
As a Catholic author, Flannery O’Connor had as much passion for her faith as for her writing. She was an accomplished and influential novelist who also composed ample short stories prior to her early death at age 39. An only child, O’Connor was raised by her parents, Regina and Francis O’Connor in Milledgeville, Georgia (“Bookrags” Online). She persistently pursued her literary work, publishing her first short story, “The Geranium”, at the age of 21. O’Connor attended the Georgia State College for Women, received her Masters of Fine Arts and just a year later, she published her first novel Wise Blood (“Books and Writers” Online).
Tragically and suddenly, her life was altered and her writing career interrupted when she was diagnosed with lupus in 1950, the same disease which took her father’s life a few years prior. This disease limited O’Connor to the confinement of her mother’s dairy farm. Despite her growing ailment, she continued to write for two hours each day. This illness tested her faith and regardless of her affliction she never lost hope. O’Connor used her literary talent to express her strong Catholicism and discomfort with living in a “religionless age”. She honestly believed there was a crisis of faith and devoted her life to expressing the need for a conversion of values among people of her time (O’Connor 2).
With her words “to the hard of hearing you shout, for the almost-blind you draw large and startling figures,” Flannery O’Connor explains her literary style (O’Connor). She feared without the bold approach of grim situations and ridiculous characters, her audience would miss her true messages which she felt vitally needed to be understood. She wrote during The Modern literary period and through common speech and ordinary settings, O’Connor presented comically unrealistic circumstances in hope of somehow portraying her concerns (1-2). Despite the different characters and conditions, her style is
Cited: “Books and Writers” Online. 9 October 2011. www.kirajasto.sci.fi/flannery.htm Gale, Thomson. “BookRags” Online. 9 October 2011. www.bookrags.com/biography/flannery-oconnor. O’Connor, Flannery. The Habit of Being. Ed. Sally Fitzgerald. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1979. 1-2.