A literary artist who has professed her religious understanding of reality provides an interesting challenge of interpretation. To what degree can the artist's religious views be considered relevant to the work of art, and how can the art be interpreted religiously without sacrificing its creative and artistic merits? While much of literary criticism seeks to distinguish the author (and the author's personal views) from his or her work, Flannery O'Connor's sacramental vision of reality is so embedded in her art that a separation between her religious understanding and her fiction leads to a misunderstanding of both. Instead of radically separating the artist's views from the artist's work, I have developed an interpretation of O'Connor that seeks to represent both her religious view of reality and her artistic exploration into the nature of reality through her fiction. This kind of analysis has two significant effects: it provides a corrective to many of the reductionistic accounts of the meaning and direction of O'Connor's religious vision, especially as it relates to her art; and it suggests an alternative approach to moral reflection through the medium of literature, whereby the concrete, embodied experiences of the characters illumine the nature of moral questions and choices. This thesis establishes, through a careful consideration ofthe prose writings of O'Connor, the inherent connection between her theology and her art. The intellectual tradition that influenced O'Connor's understanding ofart and theology, from her reading ofThomas Aquinas and Jacques Maritain, serves to clarify the orientation of her creative art. O'Connor's theological artistry is most evident in her fiction, and my interpretation focuses on an exegesis ofthree ofher major fictional works. The primary aim ofthis thesis is to elucidate O'Connor's sacramental vision and show how it is embodied in the fiction. Her prophetic vision, religious and artistic, is directed towards the drawing together of the physical and the spiritual, the concrete sensible world and the mysterious unseen reality that is eternally present. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Texte remanié de: Ph. D.--Hamilton, Ont.--McMaster university, 2001. Titre de soutenance : Prophetic vision and moral imagination in Flannery O'Connor fiction. / Bibliogr. p. 187-192. Index.

Flannery O'Connor makes the invisible visible. Just as a speaker of sign language punctuates her narrative with signs that are at once pictures and words, O'Connor punctuates the narratives of her novels with moments or pauses in the forward motion of her text that are somehow framed--in a mirror, or in a window, for example--and that also are at once pictures and words. These pictorial moments not only occur in the reader's present, but because of the way they are stylized, they are simultaneously: open windows into the historical world of the mid-twentieth century; they look backward into the classical past; and they offer a veiled look into the mystery of a Divine reality. Examination of the chronological development and refinement of Flannery O'Connor's pictorial technique by considering the meaning conveyed by the arrangement of figures in a single panel cartoon, the contextual significance found in literary tableaux and filmic montage, the use of the pictorial "camera eye," and the imprinting of tattoo on the human body, presents a new perspective in interpreting her work. Early manifestation of the pictorial technique is evident in O'Connor's college cartoons. When that cartoonist becomes a novelist that tendency for exaggeration is evident in his or her pictorial renditions of characters and situations, as is the case with former cartoonists Faulkner, Updike, West, Cantor, and O'Connor herself. O'Connor does not abandon the power of the pictorial in delivering a message. Instead she embraces it and envelops it in narrative.

There is no abstract available for this dissertation.

Based on Thesis (D.A.)--St. John's University, 2000. / Includes bibliographical references (p. [79]-84) and index.

The main body of the thesis concerns itself with the beliefs and characteristics of Southern Protestantism as they appear in the fiction of Flannery O'Connor.

This video offers some quick questions/points that might be considered when writing about O'Connor's short story. / https://dc.etsu.edu/lit-outlines-complete-oer/1008/thumbnail.jpg

Although Flannery O'Connor's fiction reflects her religious point of view, most of her protagonists are secular, either materialists, who value possessions, or rationalists, who value the intellect. During the period 1949 to 1964, when O'Connor was writing, the South was rapidly changing, and those changes are reflected in the shift in emphasis from the materialists in O'Connor's early fiction to the rationalists in the late stories. This study of O'Connor's protagonists follows the chronological order of publication. A close textual analysis of the materialists in Chapter II and of the rationalists in Chapter III supports the conclusion that O'Connor was aware of the growing secularity of the South. Whereas some of her protagonists undergo a religious experience, the majority of her protagonists are thoroughly secular materialists or rationalists.

Certain characteristics generally attributed to the British Romantics can be seen in selected writings of Flannery O'Connor, a contemporary American author (1926-1964). Chapter I defines Romanticism and identifies the Romantic elements to be discussed in the paper. Chapter II discusses Gothicism, Primitivism, and the treatment of the child as they appear in five of O'Connor's short stories. Variations of the Byronic Hero are presented in Chapter III as they appear in two short stories and one novel, Wise Blood. The internal struggle and anti-intellectualism in The Violent Bear It Away are the basis of Chapter IV. Chapter V concludes that O'Connor's concern with man as master of his fate aligns her with the Romantics and thus illustrates the influence of Romanticism on contemporary life and art.

An investigation of the prominence of vision imagery in the two novels of Flannery O'Connor, Wise Blood and The Violent Bear It Away, reveals the importance of vision to the themes and structures of the novels. Seeing truth in order to fulfill one's human vocation is a central concern in O'Connor's fiction. The realization or non-realization of truth by the characters is conveyed by vision imagery. O'Connor's Southern and Catholic heritage is the back-ground of her concern for vision as an integral part of her artistic theory. An analysis of vision imagery in each novel shows how the themes are developed and how the structures relate to such imagery. Each novel progresses according to the main character's clarity of sight. Contradictory patterns occur when the character's sight is not true.