Everything That Rises Must Converge Analysis

“Everything That Rises Must Converge” is a short story by Flannery O'Connor. The story revolves around Julian and his mother. Julian's mother has been told she must attend a weight reduction class at the YMCA, however, because the bus to the YMCA in integrated, she refuses to take the bus alone, and forces Julian to accompany her journey to the YMCA. Thus, the story takes place right at the end of segregation, as progress is beginning to change life in the South. “Everything That Rises Must Converge” by Flannery O'Connor is a story which depicts the tensions between appearance and essence. The first thing the reader notices in the first few paragraphs of the story is the focus on the past, and on how things used to be. Specifically this focus is on how things used to appear. The bus Julian's mother refuses to ride alone used to be segregated. O'Connor describes the mother's appearance as she dresses as a shade of what she used to look like, compared to her elderly appearance in the present. The neighborhood the mother and Julian live in used to be fashionable, but now the appearance is of a 'bulbous liver colored monstrosity...and uniform ugliness” (O'Connor 26-27). All of this indicates that one theme of the story is the passage of time, and how the appearance of things, whether of a person or a thing,
Julian believes that “Knowing who you are is good for one generation only....you do not have the foggiest idea...who you are”(O'Connor 28). His mother, on the other hand, believes that 'knowing who you are' is close to an eternal concept. As Julian's mother says, “you remain who you are”(O'Connor 28). That indicates she believes the essence of a person does not change, and the essence of a family does not change with the passage of time, which is why she is so fixated on her family