Why should you read Flannery O’Connor? - Iseult Gillespie
-
0:06 - 0:11A garrulous grandmother and a roaming
bandit face off on a dirt road. -
0:11 - 0:15A Bible salesman lures a one-legged
philosopher into a barn. -
0:15 - 0:20A traveling handyman teaches a deaf woman
her first word on an old plantation. -
0:20 - 0:22From her farm in rural Georgia,
-
0:22 - 0:25surrounded by a flock of pet birds,
-
0:25 - 0:28Flannery O’Connor scribbled tales
of outcasts, -
0:28 - 0:32intruders and misfits staged in
the world she knew best: -
0:32 - 0:34the American South.
-
0:34 - 0:35She published two novels,
-
0:35 - 0:38but is perhaps best known
for her short stories, -
0:38 - 0:43which explored small-town life
with stinging language, offbeat humor, -
0:43 - 0:46and delightfully unsavory scenarios.
-
0:46 - 0:48In her spare time O’Connor drew cartoons,
-
0:48 - 0:51and her writing is also
brimming with caricature. -
0:51 - 0:57In her stories, a mother has a face
“as broad and innocent as a cabbage,” -
0:57 - 1:00a man has as much drive as a “floor mop,”
-
1:00 - 1:04and one woman’s body
is shaped like “a funeral urn.” -
1:04 - 1:07The names of her characters
are equally sly. -
1:07 - 1:10Take the story “The Life You
Save May be Your Own,” -
1:10 - 1:13where the one-handed drifter Tom Shiftlet
wanders into the lives -
1:13 - 1:16of an old woman named Lucynell Crater
-
1:16 - 1:18and her deaf and mute daughter.
-
1:18 - 1:20Though Mrs. Crater is self-assured,
-
1:20 - 1:22her isolated home is falling apart.
-
1:22 - 1:25At first, we may be suspicious
of Shiftlet’s motives -
1:25 - 1:27when he offers to help around the house,
-
1:27 - 1:30but O’Connor soon reveals
the old woman to be -
1:30 - 1:33just as scheming as her unexpected guest–
-
1:33 - 1:36and rattles the reader’s presumptions
about who has the upper hand. -
1:36 - 1:39For O’Connor, no subject was off limits.
-
1:39 - 1:40Though she was a devout Catholic,
-
1:40 - 1:43she wasn’t afraid to explore
the possibility -
1:43 - 1:45of pious thought and unpious behavior
-
1:45 - 1:47co-existing in the same person.
-
1:47 - 1:50In her novel The Violent Bear it Away,
-
1:50 - 1:53the main character grapples with the
choice to become a man of God – -
1:53 - 1:56but also sets fires and commits murder.
-
1:56 - 2:00The book opens with the reluctant prophet
in a particularly compromising position: -
2:00 - 2:04“Francis Marion Tarwater’s uncle had been
dead for only half a day -
2:04 - 2:08when the boy got too drunk
to finish digging his grave.” -
2:08 - 2:11This leaves a passerby to “drag the body
from the breakfast table -
2:11 - 2:13where it was still sitting and bury it […]
-
2:13 - 2:17with enough dirt on top to keep
the dogs from digging it up.” -
2:17 - 2:19Though her own politics are still debated,
-
2:19 - 2:23O’Connor’s fiction could also be attuned
to the racism of the South. -
2:23 - 2:26In “Everything that Rises Must Converge,”
-
2:26 - 2:29she depicts a son raging
at his mother’s bigotry. -
2:29 - 2:32But the story reveals that
he has his own blind spots -
2:32 - 2:34and suggests that simply recognizing evil
-
2:34 - 2:37doesn’t exempt his character
from scrutiny. -
2:37 - 2:40Even as O’Connor probes the most
unsavory aspects of humanity, -
2:40 - 2:43she leaves the door to redemption
open a crack. -
2:43 - 2:45In “A Good Man is Hard to Find,”
-
2:45 - 2:49she redeems an insufferable grandmother
for forgiving a hardened criminal, -
2:49 - 2:52even as he closes in on her family.
-
2:52 - 2:55Though we might balk at the price the
woman pays for this redemption, -
2:55 - 2:57we’re forced to confront the nuance
in moments -
2:57 - 3:01we might otherwise consider
purely violent or evil. -
3:01 - 3:03O’Connor’s mastery of the grotesque
-
3:03 - 3:07and her explorations of the insularity and
superstition of the South -
3:07 - 3:10led her to be classified as
a Southern Gothic writer. -
3:10 - 3:12But her work pushed beyond
the purely ridiculous -
3:12 - 3:15and frightening characteristics
associated with the genre -
3:15 - 3:19to reveal the variety and nuance
of human character. -
3:19 - 3:21She knew some of this variety
was uncomfortable, -
3:21 - 3:23and that her stories could be
an acquired taste – -
3:23 - 3:27but she took pleasure
in challenging her readers. -
3:27 - 3:29O’Connor died of lupus at the age of 39,
-
3:29 - 3:34after the disease had mostly confined her
to her farm in Georgia for twelve years. -
3:34 - 3:35During those years,
-
3:35 - 3:38she penned much of her most
imaginative work. -
3:38 - 3:41Her ability to flit between
revulsion and revelation -
3:41 - 3:45continues to draw readers to her endlessly
surprising fictional worlds. -
3:45 - 3:47As her character Tom Shiftlet notes,
-
3:47 - 3:50the body is “like a house:
-
3:50 - 3:51it don’t go anywhere,
-
3:51 - 3:54but the spirit, lady,
is like an automobile: -
3:54 - 3:56always on the move.”
- Title:
- Why should you read Flannery O’Connor? - Iseult Gillespie
- Speaker:
- Iseult Gillespie
- Description:
-
View full lesson: https://ed.ted.com/lessons/why-should-you-read-flannery-o-connor-iseult-gillespie
Flannery O’Connor scribbled tales of outcasts, intruders and misfits staged in the world she knew best: the American South. She was a master of the grotesque, but her work pushed beyond the purely ridiculous and frightening to reveal the variety and nuance of human character. Iseult Gillespie explores how O’Connor’s endlessly surprising fictional worlds continue to draw readers decades later.
Lesson by Iseult Gillespie, directed by Anton Bogaty.
- Video Language:
- English
- Team:
- closed TED
- Project:
- TED-Ed
- Duration:
- 03:56
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Kayla Wolf edited English subtitles for Why should you read Flannery O’Connor? - Iseult Gillespie | ||
Tara Ahmadinejad edited English subtitles for Why should you read Flannery O’Connor? - Iseult Gillespie | ||
Tara Ahmadinejad edited English subtitles for Why should you read Flannery O’Connor? - Iseult Gillespie |