Frank O Connor's First Confession

In Frank O'Connor's “First Confession,” Mrs. Ryan's character is expected to guide children to first confession and communion however, further details reveal that Mrs. Ryan is in fact exposing the misuse of religion. Mrs. Ryan is supposed teach children the goodness of God, yet her actions convey otherwise. After all, Mrs. Ryan talks about hell instead of heaven, offers to burn your finger representing hell, tells a bad confession story and does not teach children how position during first confession. Successfully Mrs. Ryan transits fear to her students, accurately she represents the corruption within the church. At the beginning of the story, it is apparent that Mrs. Ryan is unusual. O'Connor first describes her with odd clothing “…wearing a black cloak...” (264) ironically suggesting she may be a dark influence for the children. This is first evident when Mrs. Ryan speaks about hell to the children instead of heaven. “Ryan...talks to us
Ryan first displays her poor attributes toward the children and church when she tells her students the story of a man who made a bad confession. “...a priest who woke up one night to find a fellow he wanted to go to confession fellow said last time he went to confession, there was one sin he kept back then the priest knew it was a bad case, because the fellow was after making a bad confession he got up to dress then...the priest looked at around there was no sign of the fellow when the priest looked at his bed didn’t he see the print of two hands burned in it...because the fellow had made a bad confession” (265). Revealing an irreverent story to the children Mrs. Ryan quickly manages to terrify Jackie, instead of telling a successful first confession story with ideal outcomes, Mrs. Ryan appears to scare then into her corrupt beliefs. Through her sorrowful story she transmits fear to her students and exposes the wrong use of religion. By telling a useless story to her students Mrs. Ryan shows her inadequate