A Discussion Of The Quest Theme In Flannery O’Connor’s Novels

Flannery O’Connor is an excellent American novelist in the twentieth Century. Except two novels (Wise Blood and The violent Bear It Away), O’Connor wrote31more short stories. Her friends help her to publish one book of essays and a collection of letters after she passed away. Although she didn’t have many works, she is very influential in the American Literature history.At present, the academic research on O’Connor’s works is mainly from the view point of the religious belief, the southern culture, gender and ethnicity, narrative and linguistic, while the domestic academia are still in a stage of translation and introduction about O’Connor’s works, and currently no systematic research are developed yet. In this paper, I discuss it from the viewpoint of subject study, under the basis of close reading, discuss the subject of quest, explore how the author express her idea and human care by discussing the artistic features of content, plot and narrative structures in the Novels.In addition to the introduction and conclusion, this paper consists of four chapters. The introduction mainly introduces Flannery O’Connor’s life and creation, and also introduces the current domestic and foreign research status on Flannery O’Connor. Meanwhile, it also discusses the Quest Theme development in the western narrative literature, as well as several domestic scholars’ exploration on the Quest Theme. At last, this paper concludes that there are three key words about the Quest Theme——the goal, the seeker and the environment of the quest theme. The first chapter mainly discusses the quest theme in Flannery O’Connor’s novels, including the interpretation of ambiguity about the quest theme, the distress when one seeking and the special measures used for seeking. The second chapter discusses the seekers. Rather than hero, they are normal people, and some even conflict with the definition of the heroes. They are always involved in dilemmas and their belief, ideality and even themselves becomes foggy in their questing process. The third chapter mainly analyzes the quest environment, that is, the changing environment of "On The Road", the reactions of peoples around and the creation of the pursue atmosphere. The fourth chapter mainly discusses the innovation on the narrative, including the breakthrough of the traditional quest structure and the innovation of the quest theme. In the end, the conclusion part reiterated the quest theme in O’Connor’s works and analyzes in depth the humanity and the human’s current situation, which reflects the ideological connotation and humanistic care in her works.