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.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:arizona.edu/oai:arizona.openrepository.com:10150/325225 |
| Date | January 2014 |
| Creators | Reiniche, Ruth Mary |
| Contributors | Scruggs, Charles W., Scruggs, Charles W., Dryden, Edgar, Temple, Judy |
| Publisher | The University of Arizona. |
| Source Sets | University of Arizona |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text, Electronic Dissertation |
| Rights | Copyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author. |
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