Life Of An Interesting Woman

Karla Gabriela Fajardo Escoto

M.A. Iris Vallecillo

LIN-2206 Introduction to Literary Studies

November 19th, 2012

Flannery O’Connor: Life of an interesting woman

An author is defined as the person in charge of creating a written work (poem, essays, autobiographies, biographies, stories, etc.) or give life to some things that have in their imagination. The name Flannery is a name used for both, boys and girls, from Irish, Celtic origin and means red-haired, which is curious because Flannery O’Connor was brown hair. Flannery O’Connor an American writer born in 1925 in Savannah Georgia, in a Roman Catholic family, the only child from Edward F. and Regina Cline O’Connor, her full name Mary Flannery O’Connor. They moved to Milledgeville because of the father employment; she began her education in the parochial school, and she continues studying in a women college (Peabody Laboratory School) in the Georgia State College for Women (GSCW). At the age of fifteen her father died of systemic lupus erythematous, after this lost, she began studying at GSCW, moreover in 1945 Mary Flannery O'Connor receives her BA degree in social science from GSCW in June and leaves to attend the State University of Iowa, where she receives a scholarship in journalism. Unhappy in this program, she enrolls in the Writers' Workshop, directed by Paul Engle. She now signs all her work and refers to herself simply as Flannery O'Connor; also she receives her Master of Fine Arts degree from Iowa and begins working on her first novel.

She was an active reader and an artist; she began as a cartoonist, making cartoons for the college’s newspaper; in addition to this, when she was in Paul Engle’s she met several important writers and critics who lecture and taught her in the program, among those was Andrew Lytle who was editor of the “Sewanee Review” he was from the first admirers of O’Connor’s fiction and published some of her writings and with it his critic essay. In that way she began her trajectory. Flannery O'Connor works are unique for the use of grotesque and Christian themes, she truly sees her characters as “religious” heroes; even though some come across as evil, in “A Good Man is hard to find”, “Good Country People” and “Revelation” show the Christian contrast between Evil and Innocence, and many of her works are classified as “Southern Gothic” because of her strong feelings and strong use of moral and physical themes. Mary Flannery O'Connor was an American writer and essayist. An important voice in American literature, O'Connor wrote two novels and 32 short stories, as well as a number of reviews and commentaries. O'Connor's writing also reflected her own Roman Catholic faith, and frequently examined questions of morality and ethics. Her texts usually take place in the South and revolve around morally flawed characters, while the issue of race often appears in the background, as she does when writing “A Good Man Is Hard to Find”. One of her trademarks is foreshadowing, giving a reader an idea of what will happen far before it happens. Flannery O’Connor said:

"Anything that comes out of the South is going to be called grotesque by the northern reader, unless it is grotesque, in which case it is going to be called realistic."

The form of writing of Flannery O´Connor is very interesting and the grotesque themes for

Stories that she wrote for her is the reality and her catholic’s roots made that she saw the character in a religious form. Flannery O'Connor works are unique for the use of Christian themes, she truly sees her characters as “religious” heroes; even though some come across as evil. A character is defined as “the representation of a person in a narrative work of art (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Character_(arts)”

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