Salt of the Earth
Salt of the Earth
Flannery O 'Connor 's novels and stories are inhabited with unique and flawed characters who are the result of O’Connor 's satiric worldly perspective. While they are sometimes humorous, these misfits are usually unpleasant. Critics have termed them "grotesque," but O 'Connor has rejected this term because it suggests that the characters are too weird to belong in the real world. Instead, O 'Connor insists that the South is inhabited by many such people. For every good or evil thing, there is an antagonist or opposing force. One of Flannery O’Connor’s most successful stories, “Good Country People”addresses themes of this “good versus evil,” the possibility of redemption achieved through an encounter with violence, and the foolishness of intellectual pretensions. Born in Savannah, GA on March 25, 1925, Mary Flannery O’Connor was the only child of Edward, a real estate agent, and Regina. She was raised in a minority Irish-Catholic community within the larger Protestant South, and was taught by the strict Sisters of Mercy at St. Vincent’s Grammar School (“Flannery O 'Connor”). At age five, she taught her pet chicken to walk backwards. This stunt attracted local newspaper attention and the event was documented on camera. The humorous short film was screened in many movie theaters across America in 1932 (“Biography”). Her first “book,” lovingly bound by her father, was “My Relatives,” a series of scathing satiric drawings and captions (“Flannery O 'Connor”). Her highly protected childhood was shattered when her father developed lupus and died in 1941. In the fall of 1945, O’Connor enrolled in the journalism graduate school at the State University of Iowa to pursue a career as a political cartoonist. Within her first few weeks in Iowa City, she found her way to Paul Engle’s Writers’ Workshop, the first Master of Fine Arts program in the country, and switched her major (“Biography”). Discovering her vocation as a writer, both writing and
Flannery O 'Connor 's novels and stories are inhabited with unique and flawed characters who are the result of O’Connor 's satiric worldly perspective. While they are sometimes humorous, these misfits are usually unpleasant. Critics have termed them "grotesque," but O 'Connor has rejected this term because it suggests that the characters are too weird to belong in the real world. Instead, O 'Connor insists that the South is inhabited by many such people. For every good or evil thing, there is an antagonist or opposing force. One of Flannery O’Connor’s most successful stories, “Good Country People”addresses themes of this “good versus evil,” the possibility of redemption achieved through an encounter with violence, and the foolishness of intellectual pretensions. Born in Savannah, GA on March 25, 1925, Mary Flannery O’Connor was the only child of Edward, a real estate agent, and Regina. She was raised in a minority Irish-Catholic community within the larger Protestant South, and was taught by the strict Sisters of Mercy at St. Vincent’s Grammar School (“Flannery O 'Connor”). At age five, she taught her pet chicken to walk backwards. This stunt attracted local newspaper attention and the event was documented on camera. The humorous short film was screened in many movie theaters across America in 1932 (“Biography”). Her first “book,” lovingly bound by her father, was “My Relatives,” a series of scathing satiric drawings and captions (“Flannery O 'Connor”). Her highly protected childhood was shattered when her father developed lupus and died in 1941. In the fall of 1945, O’Connor enrolled in the journalism graduate school at the State University of Iowa to pursue a career as a political cartoonist. Within her first few weeks in Iowa City, she found her way to Paul Engle’s Writers’ Workshop, the first Master of Fine Arts program in the country, and switched her major (“Biography”). Discovering her vocation as a writer, both writing and
Cited: "Biography." eNotes Publishing. Ed. Scott Locklear. eNotes.com, Inc., . eNotes.com. 2 Jun, 2013 Bosco, Mark. "Consenting To Love: Autiobiographical Roots Of "Good Country People." Southern Review 41.2 (2005): 283-295. Academic Search Premier. Web. 2 June 2013. "Flannery O 'Connor." 2013. The Biography Channel website. Jun 02 2013, 08:38 http://www.biography.com/people/flannery-oconnor-9426760. O 'Connor, Flannery. “Good Country People.” Perkins, George B.. The American Tradition in Literature. 12th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2009. 1990-2003.