A Prophetess In A Sinful World

Flannery O' Conner was one of the most important Southern American writers after William Faulkner. She succumbed to lupus when she was only 39. In her short life, she accomplished under great pain two novels, thirty short stories, a large amount of correspondence and numerous essays, the latter two of which were collected and edited as The Habit of Being and Mystery and Manners.O' Conner was a pious Catholic. As a Catholic writer, she tried her best to convey her vision to us average readers. Living in a world with corrupt morals and ethic disorder, which could be perceived as the parable of religious apocalypse and prophecy, O'Connor was hailed as the prophetess in a sinful world. She broke away from the tradition of writing integrated tragedy in southern literature;instead she recreated the sinful world through her pieces of stories to reinforce the sins and corruption in man's faith and morals and then offered an effective way to salvation.Since her works were centered on sin and salvation, which posed misunderstanding and confusion among average readers, some critics even went so far to remark that O'Conner was obsessed with sins and violence. Admittedly, sins and violence were imbued with O'Conner's works, but they were well-intended.This dissertation tries to justify O'Conner's identity as a prophetess in a sinful world. The dissertation is divided into 5 chapters. In the first chapter, O'Connor's life experience, her place in the 20th century and the panorama study of O'Connor are provided. Chapter 2 mainly covers the issue of O'Connor's special interests in sins from the religious and social perspectives. As for O'Conner's view of sin, she was born a Catholic, who firmly believes in the original sin, which is innate in mankind as the descendants of Adam. As far as her social surroundings are concerned, she lives in a decade of turmoil in which a battery of significant events takes place. With the breaking up of American dream, the Americans are facing spiritual crisis. Religion has lost its supremacy. Sins are prevailing around America. As a sensitive writer, O'Conner is well justified to depict the reality of the modern sinful material world.Chapter 3 gives force to the recurring sins in O'Connor's fictional world. Concrete textual analyses of various sins derived from original sin are provided, such as sin of rationalism, sin of pride, sin of egoism. From a series of mysterious and fascinating stories, O'Conner conveys to us the message about sins and redemption.Chapter 4 concerns with O'Conner's peculiar way of salvation. Salvation through violence and death is one of the most heated debates centering on O'Connor. Yet in O'Connor's opinion, violence and death are not only proper means but also meansauthorized by God, through which she awakens people from the sinful world and bring them back to God. Just as she has found that violence is strangely capable of returning her fictional characters to reality and preparing them to accept their moments of grace. Their heads are so hard that almost nothing else will do the work. Behind the horrible violence and death is O'Conner's love and concern for humanity as a whole.Lastly in Chapter 5, after a brief summary, conclusions are drawn: O'Connor well deserves the honor as a prophetess in a sinful world.