An Analysis Of Self-Projection In Flannery O’Connor’s Short Stories

As an outstanding American novelist,Flannery O’Connor holds a prominent position among the woman writers in the 20^th century.Her works,though in a few numbers,have made great contribution to the flourish of southern renaissance.She suffered many mishaps during her short life,especially her father’s death at her young age and her own lupus.O’Connor lived in the family farm for twelve years after her diagnosis,where she completed more than two dozen short stories and two novels while struggling with lupus.All of O’Connor’s stories are set in the actual southern scene and are recognized with their grotesque characters,startling plots and chilling endings that are intentional distortions for religious purpose.The study on O’Connor’s works generally revolve around her identity as a southerner,a woman and a catholic and seek to reveal the value of her works from the three main perspectives.But the fact that her life as a hermit in a southern farm makes her writing and her instinctive desire restrained unconsciously has been,somehow,ignored.Therefore,the deep revelation of characters’spiritual world as well as her own troubled life made her works subject to psychoanalytical criticism.Based on close reading of her stories and combined with Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytical theory,the thesis is to explore the spiritual world of the typical characters in O’Connor’s short stories and tries to excavate the writer’s self-projected consciousness which was suppressed due to mental defense mechanism and points out that her creation is her course to realize catharsis,idealization and self-restriction,thus getting a better understanding of the psychological background and her way of writing.This thesis consists of three parts:a general introduction,three main-body chapters and a conclusion.The first part starts with a brief introduction of O’Connor’s personal life and the general condition of her works,followed by the literature review on previous research on her works both home and abroad and a brief introduction of the development of psychoanalytical criticism as well as the concept of projection included in the defense mechanisms.Chapter one analyzes the writer’s course to realize her self-catharsis through projection from the fixed story model and typical southern characters she created such as the self-conceited women farm owners,the rebellious young men who hold complex feeling towards the parent,the dominant old man who does not bear any other’s challenge.Chapter two aims to reveal the author’s course to meet her desire of self-idealization through her unconscious mental projection by creating such characters modeled on herself as the proud girl who has got her PhD,the female writer with unconscious illusion and the girls with masculine complex.Chapter three explains the projection of the author’s personal values and the realization of O’Connor’s self-restriction through her writing about women in the patriarchal context,middle-class whites in the ethnic context and apocalyptic ideas in the religious context.The conclusion part reiterates the aesthetic significance of interpreting her works within Freud psychoanalysis field.Simultaneously,it explains some viewpoints which deserve to be discussed on O’Connor study.What’s more,the forecast on further O’Connor study is offered here.