Flannery O’connor
Flannery O’connor
Flannery OConnor was born in Savannah, Georgia, the only child of a Catholic family. The region was part of the Christ-haunted Bible belt of the Southern States. The spiritual heritage of the region shaped profoundly OConnors writing as described in her essay “The Catholic Novelist in the Protestant South” (1969). OConnors father, Edward F. OConnor, was a realtor owner. He worked later for a construction company and died in 1941. Her mother, Regina L. (Cline) OConnor, came from a prominent family in the state – her father had been a mayor of Milledgeville for many years.
When OConnor was 12, her family moved to Milledgeville, her mothers birthplace. She attended the Peabody High School and enrolled in the Georgia State College for Women. At school she edited the college magazine and graduated in 1945 with an A.B. OConnor then continued her studies at the University of Iowa, where she attended writers workshops conducted by Paul Engle. At the age of 21 she published her first short story, The Geranium, in Accent. In the following year she received the degree of Master of Fine Arts in Literature. In 1947 she lived for seven months at Yaddo, Saratoga Springs, N.Y., an estate left by the Trask family for writers, painters and musicians.
OConnor published four chapters of Wise Blood in Mademoiselle, Sewanee Review, and Partisan Review in 1948 and 1949. The complete novel appeared 1952. It dealt with a young religious enthusiast, who attempts to establish a church without Christ. The Signet paperback version of the book advertised it as “A Searching Novel of Sin and Redemption”. OConnors second novel, The Violent Bear It Away (1960), had a related subject matter. The protagonist is Francis Marion Tarwater who begins his ministry in his youth. He baptizes and drowns Bishop, his uncles idiot son. Old Tarwater warns his grand-nephew: “You are the kind of boy, the old man said, that the devil is always going to be offering to assists, to give you a smoke or a drink or a ride, and to ask you your bidnis. You had better mind how you take up with strangers.” Young Tarwater sets fire to his own woods to clean himself, and like his great-uncle, a mad prophet, he finally becomes a prophet and a madman. OConnor once explained that “I can write about Protestant believers better than Catholic believers – because they express their belief in diverse kinds of dramatic action which is obvious enough for me to catch. I cant write about anything subtle.”
The young protagonist of Wise Blood, Hazel Mote, returns from the army with his faith gone awry. He founds the Church Without Christ, wears a preachers bright blue suit and a preachers black hat. He is accompanied by bizarre villains. Asa Hawks pretends to have blinded himself. Sabbath Lily, his daughter, turns into a monster of sexual voracity. The fox-faced young Enoch Emery steals from a museum a mummy, which he thinks of as “the new jesus.” Enoch knows things because “he had wise blood like his daddy.” Eventually Enoch finds his religious fulfillment dressed in a stolen gorilla costume. Hazel buys an old Essex automobile, his own religious mystery: “Nobody with a good car needs to be justified.” Haze murders the False Prophet, his rival, by running over him with his second-hand Essex, and faces his cul-de-sac.
John Huston read the novel in 1978 – he received a copy of it from Michael Fitzgerald, whose father was OConnors literary executor. Against all odds, Michael Fitzgerald got the money for the production, some $2,000,000; the screenplay was written by Michael and his brother, Benedict, and everyone worked for a minimum wage. Most of the film was shot in Macon, Georgia. “There were seven outstanding performances in Wise Blood. Only three of those seven actors have any reputation to speak of: Brad Dourif, Ned Beatty and Harry Dean Stanton. The other four are unknowns. They are all great stars, as far as Im concerned. Nothing would make me happier than to see this picture gain popular acceptance and turn a profit. It would prove something. Im not sure what but something.” ( John Huston in An Open Book, 1988)
In 1950 OConnor suffered her first attack from disseminated lupus, a debilitating blood disease that had killed her father. She returned to Milledgeville where she lived with her mother on her dairy farm. In spite of the