Although many critics would label Flannery O’Connor a “hillbilly nihilist”, she prefers to label herself a “hillbilly Thomist”. The violence that spans across almost all of O’Connor’s work is viewed by most to be meaningless and nihilistic and as an end in itself. This mainly occurs by those who view O’Connor’s work at a very base surface level and consider her work to be realism. However, when examined more in depth, the violence that characterizes O’Connor’s work can be seen as not only meaningful, but as necessary to truly see the grace imbued in everyday life. It does not exist as an end, but ever as the means.
O’Connor’s use of violence within her novels and short stories is primarily necessary because the characters that she has created…show more content… Much akin to how most persons do not regularly recognize the atmosphere of oxygen and gasses that they live in, most modern persons live quite indifferently to God’s grace. An even more popular postmodern nihilistic outlook strips meaning from events and experiences and is essentially a revulsion against God’s grace. Everything can be boiled down to a scientific explanation or fits under some method of logical and reasonable cause and effect. God’s grace in everyday life, then, prevenient grace, seems to be overlooked by the vast majority of people, if not rejected by some as well. O’Connor’s violent writing, then, attempts to accomplish for modernity and post-modernity what violence accomplishes for her characters, namely, to present them with a moment of grace amidst meaninglessness and amorality. Through her grotesque and violence, O’Connor creates distinctions so that everyday grace can be seen in contrast to the violence of her works. Through utilization of the striking violence and suffering of her grotesque and seemingly irredeemable characters within The Violent Bear It Away and her short stories, O’Connor overcomes modernity’s ignorance of grace’s necessity and presence in the world and reveals, through these same characters, moments of redeeming grace thrust upon the world and those in it. This…show more content… This story proceeds as most O’Connor stories do, which is very non-threateningly until the last few pages. Mrs. May, similar to Ruby Turpin, lives most of her life non-concerned with others and maintains a very false sense of moral superiority to others in her life. The bulk of the story revolves around Mrs. May attempting to get a bull off of her property. She finally drives Mr. Greenleaf to kill the bull, but as he is looking for it, the bull charges her and pierces her heart. It is more difficult to identify this scenario as an encounter with grace than with Mrs. Turpin because Mrs. May’s encounter with grace leads immediately to her death. O’Connor hints to the reader, though, that, as usual, her violence was not meaningless but rather it provided a transformative encounter with grace. “She continued to stare straight ahead but the entire scene in front of her had changed—the tree line was a dark wound in a world that was nothing but sky—and she had the look of a person whose sight has been suddenly restored but who find the light unbearable” (523). Utilizing her almost key signal word of transformative grace, O’Connor describes the vision and sight of Mrs. May being “restored” as if there had been an awakening in her. O’Connor’s violence once again retains meaning and purpose, providing a passageway for God’s grace to enter the lives of her
