Cette thèse a pour but principal de renouveler l’étude de la question du rapport entre l’esthétique et l’idéologique dans l’oeuvre de Flannery O’Connor. Contrairement aux études antérieures menées sur cette question, elle sera abordée ici dans le cadre d’une théorie du discours littéraire, c’est-à-dire d’une théorie qui prend en compte les dimensions à la fois performatives et réflexives propres aux textes littéraires. Ce postulat théorique a des conséquences importantes pour l’étude du rapport entre les textes littéraires et les contextes sociaux, politiques, historiques et littéraires de leur mise en circulation et de leur réception. Il implique, notamment, que les ouvrages littéraires inscrivent et négocient dans leur texture même les conditions de leur mise en circulation et de leur réception, et ainsi, que la question de leur contexte doit être abordée en premier par l’étude de cette inscription et de cette négociation textuelles. Pour autant qu’elle tient pleinement compte de la logique médiate de cette inscription et de cette négociation—et notamment des effets médiateurs des figures du lecteur et de l’auteur, ainsi que du genre et du champ littéraire—l’approche pragmatique adoptée dans cette thèse permet non seulement de mener à bien cette étude, mais également de montrer sous un nouveau jour la complexité et la singularité de la signature littéraire de Flannery O’Connor. / The principal aim of this dissertation is to provide a fresh approach to the vexed question of the relationship between the aesthetic and the ideological in the work of Flannery O’Connor. Unlike existing studies of this question in the critical literature, the approach adopted in this dissertation is based on the premise that it can best be treated in the context of a theory of literary discourse, one, in particular, that takes full consideration of the reflexive and performative dimensions of literary works. This theoretical assumption has considerable consequences for the study of the relationship between literary texts and the social, political, historical and literary contexts of their reception and circulation. In particular, it suggests that literary texts inscribe and negotiate the social and historical conditions of their circulation and reception, and that the question of their context should be approached first and foremost through the study of this textual inscription and negotiation. Insofar as it takes full consideration of the mediatory logic that such textual negotiation entails—in particular the mediating presence and effect of the figures of the reader and the author, the genre of the work, and the literary field—literary pragmatics will be seen to provide an approach which not only enables this study, but also reveals in a new light both the complexity and the singularity of Flannery O’Connor’s literary signature.

This thesis examines the relationship between Southern literature and socio-cultural realities of the Southern region of the United States of America. Analyzing works of five distinguished Southern writers, this thesis examines the reflection of specific Southern culture features in literature of the region in the period from the end of the American Civil War to the second half of the 20th century. The thesis oppose the opinion that the primary goal of Southern literature was to promote Southern identity and its cultural superiority above the North. The central hypothesis, that is being verified by this thesis, is that despite the indisputable contribution of highly recognized Southern writers to building of Southern identity, these authors expressed in their works also often sharp critiques of the social conditions in the South.

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.

This thesis is an investigation into the nature of the characterizations of women and Negroes in the fiction of Flannery O'Connor and the extent to which the attitudes, beliefs, and ideas contained in the background of the author influenced such portrayals. The thesis identifies these influences as her native South and the Roman Catholic Church and concludes that her misogynistic treatment of women and sympathetic handling of Negroes proceeds from values placed on both groups in such influences.

This thesis seeks to understand how we read and understand the use of depictions of violence by examining its rhetorical presentation. Although the media gives us a mixed understanding of the way that experiencing violence secondarily (that is, through all types of media) affects us, scholarship in this area has proved clear connections between viewing/experiencing depictions of violence and raised levels of aggression. On the other hand, there is a clear difference between gratuitous depictions of violence and socially useful depictions of violence (i.e., the difference between a slasher movie and a holocaust movie) that that area of scholarship does not expressly take into account. I argue that the language of trauma studies has the ability to evaluate the impact of violent texts on audiences and that Kenneth Burke's Dramatistic Pentad has the ability the examine depictions of violence to uncover explicit and hidden ideologies that affect the presentation of the violence and, thus, our reception and interpretation of that violence. Working in conjunction, these two theories can help audience's understand depictions of violence on an ideological level and help them to assess the violence's potential traumatic impact on themselves and others within certain contexts. To demonstrate this theory of understanding violence, I make two short analyses of Native Son and The Lovely Bones and demonstrate an in-depth analysis of Fight Club and Blood Meridian in order to give an example of the type of reading I am advocating and its potential for understanding and interpreting depictions of violence in ways that uncover both social benefit and harm. In the end, I hope that this theory of reading violence might extend beyond the sample readings I have done and into other types of media, so that we can all understand the ways that violence is used rhetorically for social and political purposes and be able to both use it and interpret it responsibly.