"Flannery O'Conner" What are five things you learned about Flannery O'Conner from reading her Casebook?

Essay by Toof_75_75High School, 12th gradeA+, October 2002

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Flannery O'Conner, best known for her short stories about race, religion and moral values, was a very influential writer who is still respected for her works today. There is a certain style to her works, that make them all her own. Her wonderfully captivating works also leave lots of room for interpretation.

As far as interpretation is concerned, the first thing that caught my attention in her casebook was the quote, "Flannery O'Conner provides the unusual example of a writer who shared her own interpretation of her short stories with her readers." In context this means, O'Conner presented her own opinion on her works as though someone else wrote them and she was simply analyzing them. These is a very interesting way of doing things because where most people would just be proud of their work, and proclaim it as greatness, O'Conner humbled herself enough to objectively analyze and criticize her own work.

Flannery O'Connor has a unique style all her own. The figures of speech used in O'Connor's writing, range from similes and metaphors to inviting imagery. One thing that O'Connor is known for is her southern dialect and use of colloquialisms. In her use of southern dialect, O'Connor adds the accent that a southerner has, by using "y'all" and other country contractions. O'Conner also expresses her Southern heritage through statements such as, "I wouldn't talk about my native state that way. Tennessee has the mountains and Georgia has the hills." She would not know as much if she hadn't lived in the South and felt that way herself at one point in time. O'Connor also portrays the southern attitude towards other races quite well. For example, she refers to an African American child as a "pickaninny" in her statement, "'...Oh look at the cute little pickaninny!'...