Flannery O'Connor

Essay by crzygrl420High School, 11th gradeA, May 2002

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The world today has mysterious ways of working its magic. The world was blessed when Flannery O'Connor was born, in Savannah, Georgia on March 25, 1925. Flannery O'Connor was the only child of Edward Francis O'Connor and Regina Cline O'Connor. After graduation from Georgia State College for Women in Milledgeville in 1945, she went to Iowa City and became a graduate student in the Writers' Workshop at the State University of Iowa. O'Connor wrote a few stories that came to success, one in particular was "Wise Blood."

Flannery O'Connor soon discovered that she had contracted lupus erythematosus. This chronic disease is known to affect different parts of the body, including skin, joints, blood and kidneys. The disease lowers the body's immune system, and this allows unhealthy bacteria into the body.

The doctors thought it would be best for her if she moved back home. At most, they thought, she might have three years left.

At the end of three years, she had written nine short stories that displayed her talent to the world. Robert Fitzgerald put forth his opinion of Flannery O'Connor in his introduction to "Everything That Rises Must Converge" by writing, "the disease

[Lupus] did not capture her spirit of writing of her messages she wanted to send across" (25). In those stories, O'Connor put forth many talents that aspiring authors strive to have.

Flannery O'Connor has few talents in her stories that reflect her home life and the way she, herself, dealt with conflicts in her life. David S. Cunningham writes that "The South's identity results from beliefs and qualities absorbed from the scriptures and from her [the South's] own history of defeat and violation"(Cunningham 4th pg.). O'Connor contributed to the identity of the South by the intelligence of her writing. But of course, the South was...