Flannery O'Connor Essay Example Revelation Must Rise and Converge

Melissa Heatherly Revelation Must Rise and Converge The majority of O’Connor’s short stories each contain characters that must have a confrontation with their self in order to achieve a deeper understanding of how a meaningful life must be lived. Many of her stories can be connected to one another in a variety of different ways. Each one of her stories has underlying themes, and many topics that are addressed. For example, in her stories “Revelation” and “Everything that Rises Must Converge” both of these stories show that she uses multiple symbols and actions to get her point across about stereotyping. Flannery O’Connor is communicating that people have a tendency toward stereotyping, making them ignorant and short sighted. O’Connor’s stories portray stereotyping of society’s class structure through some of the characters actions, such as Mrs. Turpin, Julian, and Julian’s mother. Julian thinks of himself as open –minded and possibly self righteous. One example of this is his response to how he thinks of his mother’s actions. “You look like a-thug” his mother says. Julian rolls his eyes and fixes his tie, “Restored to my class”, as if his clothing somehow determines where he exists in a level of society. He belittles his mother’s actions and comments, and somehow behaves as if he is above it all. Yet Julian, his mother, and Mrs. Turpin assume a person’s class status is immediately tied to their outward appearance, again based on their clothing. The man on the bus reading the newspaper is an upstanding citizen in Julian’s eyes, “The Negro was well dressed and carried a briefcase”. Julian is, on one hand upset at his mother’s thoughts, yet immediately stereotypes the unknown black man as an equal based on the man’s appearance. With the same theme, Mrs. Turpin automatically assumed the people in the waiting room were a class below her because of the shoes they were wearing, ”The ugly girl had on girl scout shoes and heavy socks…The