irony in everything that rises must converge
The story concerns questions of right and wrong, with the contrasting moral sensibilities of Julian and his mother forming the basis of the plots conflict. His is a retreat into the memory such as he accuses his mother of, and in that retreat he realizes that it is the hat that is familiar. Finally, it seems, O'Connor has written a story which we can easily read and understand without having to struggle with abstract religious symbolism. Julian's mother is a product of her upbringing and views towards Negroes. For instance, Julians mother believes that she dedicated her life towards raising her son. OConnor again characterizes Julian in terms of his desire to resist any kind of human connection when she describes the inner compartment of his mind that is the only place where he felt free of the general idiocy of his fellows. Julian attributes what he believes is his judgment and insight to his ability to sever bondsespecially that with his mother. We are told that when he got on a bus by himself, he made it a point to sit down by a Negro in reparation as it were for his mothers sins. His sense of guilt proves to be a negative force; for although he has tried to make friends with Negroes, he has never succeeded. 14244. Dixie Radcliff grew up, apparently, with a religious influence about her like her clothes or skin. It was Flannery OConnors contention that the strange characters who populate her world are essentially no different from you and me. Her fascination with the small boy and her ability to play with him indicate that they, at least, have risen above strict self-interest and have "converged" in a momentary Christian love for one another. OConnor, Flannery, Mysteries and Manners: Occasional Prose, edited by Sally and Robert Fitzgerald, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1969. In "Everything That Rises Must Converge," Flannery O'Connor explores a young man's reaction to and handling of his elderly mother's adherence to tradition, social hierarchy, and racial prejudice . Her final work, Everything That Rises Must Converge, was published posthumously the following year. The stories throughout the collection create situations where a flawed character comes to a vision of himself as he really is, and makes possible a true rising toward Being, asserts Dorothy Tuck McFarland in Flannery OConnor. It was the only place where he felt free of the general idiocy of his fellows. One OConnor story which has a special kinship with Mitchells classic story is Everything That Rises Must Converge. Taken together, these echoes of Gone with the Wind some blatant parallels, some ironic reversals underscore the storys thesis that Julians and his mothers responses to life in the South of the civil rights movement are unreasonable and, ultimately, self-destructive precisely because those responses are based upon actions and values popularized by Mitchells book. The bus makes another stop and a smartly-dressed black man boards. ", O'Connor gave answers to those questions in two interviews granted in 1963, two years after this story appeared and one year before her death. Scarlett is trying to survive in a South undergoing social, economic and racial upheavals due to the Civil War, while Julians mother is trying to survive in a South undergoing similar upheavals caused by the civil rights movement, World War II and the Korean conflict. As we noted, the plot line of the story appears to be simple; the major impact of the story, however, is generated by the interaction of the attitudes held by Julian and his mother. Their shared concern for acting in a fashion befitting ones social class displays, again, a stronger commitment to. . He begins by commanding, "Slaves, obey your human masters. These scenes close with the comments "The bus stopped . Instead of diversifying biologically, humanity takes a path of convergencethat is, a path toward intersection or unionrising toward the unification of spirit in God. More specifically, OConnor evidently saw the progress of race relations in the South since the Civil War as part of the convergence of all humanity towards Omega point. This wrongheaded strategy is seen when she tries to use the coin suggesting a new order in a way appropriate to the old. When the story appeared as first prize winner of the 1963 O. Henry Awards, it was remarked in one of those primary sources of Miss OConnors raw material, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution: her basic plot line is provocative and witty: an old-guard Southern lady, afraid to ride the buses without her son since integration, parades out for an evening dressed in a new and expensive hat. In 1954 a landmark Supreme Court decision, Brown vs. Board of Education, deemed school. Source: Marion Montgomery, On Flannery OConnors Everything That Rises Must Converge, in Critique, Vol. He runs to her crying, calling her darling, and sweetheart, and Mama, as her face distorts and her eyes close. As Julian attempts to help his mother up from the pavement, he realizes that the shock of the experience has caused her to suffer a strokethus she actually becomes victim to the outdated code by which she has lived. On the surface, "Everything That Rises Must Converge" appears to be a simple story. Teilhards vision sweeps forward without detaching itself at any point from the earth. The authors of these stories rely on irony as a prominent stylistic device especially in relation to their stories main characters. Until his mothers stroke, he has no impetus to change his outlook; consequently, it takes a disaster to move him. For Further Study But the Christianimplications of Julians tragedy separate him from Oedipus. Actually it is he who lives in the past, though only his own private past, for he can deal only in abstractions fed by reverie and memory. Concerning the second point, Jefferson although a slaveholder himself found the Souths peculiar institution morally repugnant. The bus and its passengers form a microcosm, and the events that occur in the course of the ride comprise a kind of socio-drama. We can, he argues, "only find our person by uniting together.". An Olympian, anonymous evaluation, by one who has not even noticed that Julian is the protagonist. These are some of the ways that OConnor shows the terribly compromised ways that people rise and converge. Is she so different from Julian, though? Yet Julian and his mother now live in a rundown neighborhood that had been fashionable forty years ago. She has sacrificed everything for her son and continues to support him even though he has graduated from college. It is at this point of recognition that he sees his mothers eyes once more and interprets them. The designs of these pieces suggest a nexus of meanings relating to the social, racial and religious themes of Everything that Rises. Richard Abcarian, Marvin Klotz. That is, Julian is, in effect, two presences in the story, the Julian who assumes himself aloof and detached from the human condition by virtue of his superior intellect and the Julian who destroys his mother before our eyes. In his interaction with The Well-Dressed Black Man, Julian further indicates that he, in a different way than his Mother, treats black people as something other than completely human. For example, the narrator reveals that the old man Grierson had intimidated many of his daughters suitors, as he did not consider them good enough for his daughter. Julian does experience a kind of convergence: his distorted vision is corrected (if not permanently, at least for a time): he does receive the opportunity to revamp his life. For she takes such a dim view of the all-too-human characters she creates. Sources And there is a mimicry of his mother by Julian in such an indirect statement as this: because the reducing class was one of her few pleasures, necessary for her health, and free, she said Julian could at least put himself out to take her, considering all she did for him. The first paragraph concludes with a statement which is not quite neutral on the authors part, a statement we are to carry with us into the action: Julian did not like to consider all she did for him, but every Wednesday night he braced himself and took her. The but indicates that on Wednesdays the consideration is inescapable, but also that Julian is capable of the minor sacrifice of venturing into the world from his generally safe withdrawal into a kind of mental bubble. With the story so focused that we as readers are aware that we watch Julian watching his mother, the action is ready to proceed, with relatively few intrusions of the author from this point. He can connect nothing with nothing. Scarletts resentment towards Ellen OHara may help explain Julians own palpable contempt for his mother. . Ed. No doubt Julians mother would be flattered to see the connection between herself and Scarlett OHara signified by the cushion-like hat; and no doubt Scarlett herself would find that connection a grim commentary on the self-image of Julians mother. (February 22, 2023). Irony enriches literary texts and enhances the reader's experience. OConnor demonstrates this through the symbol of the hat, evidence that Julians mother has fallen and the black woman has risen to a point where they meet themselves as they sit across from each other on a public bus in identical hats. It is only begun. The story "Everything That Rises Must Converge" is another story of a mother and son that is tragic. Julian is convinced that because he is able to accept African Americans, he is a better person than her mother is. Chardin would call this a form of Christie energy or grace through which the individual is brought into closer communication with the source of truth. After Julians Mothers shocking experience, which is reflective of a new social order, she descends into a fantasy of the past. . What can this theory have to do with the bleak view of human nature that OConnor presents in the story? Mrs. Chestny proudly says multiple times. Monticello further ties in with the Godhigh country mansion as a symbol of the aristocratic heritage and accompanying social pretensions of Julians mother. He has an evil urge to break her spirit and he succeeds, only to regret it deeply. Julians mother perceives the rise of African American people as related to her own familys fall from the social and economic heights it enjoyed before the Civil War. Julian, the arrogant and alienated son, abhors his mothers racism and resents her attachment to outdated ideas of Southern aristocracy. Scarletts response to the convergence which she sees around her in postwar Georgia is more constructive: she accepts what she must and changes what she can. 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