English 4
Literary Analysis
Assignment: Write an analytical essay exploring some portion of the short fiction we’ve read in the past few weeks. Your essay should have a tight, clear thesis and contain substantial evidence from your primary sources: the stories assigned in class. Be sure to focus on the formal literary aspects of the works such as characters, plot, setting, imagery, diction, narration, irony, etc. that helps convey meanings and feelings to the reader.
[Instructor comments appear in bold, italic font within brackets below.]
We Need Compassion
The story “Everything That Rises Must Converged” by Flannery O’
Connor shows us that even if we make mistakes, we need compassion. The relationship
between Julian and his mother is about ignorance, innocence, violence, fantasy,
anger, and guilt. Julian and his mother reflect the damaging effects of these
last two feelings in our lives. As human beings we are born with the capacity
to feel. As we have experienced, these feelings can be bad ones or good ones.
They can be affected by events or people around us. In the case of Julian and
his mother, we learn how sad it is when they develop bad feelings that make
their lives miserable.
The personality of Julian’s mother is mostly shaped by the people who surrounded her since she was a little girl. According to O’Connor, she is the granddaughter of a former state governor who had a plantation and two hundred slaves (624-625). Then, that land was inherited by her father who also became a “prosperous landowner” (624). From these facts, we can deduce the kind of life she lived during her childhood. Since she mentions that Julian’s great-grandfather was a former governor, she lived among people who exerted power. This type of environment can create a feeling of superiority toward other people. But that is not the only factor that affected her life in a negative way. O’Connor also mentions that her family “had a plantation and two hundred slaves” (625).
Having a plantation means that she lived a bountiful life. Oftentimes living a bountiful life can have a negative impact on a person. It can cause a person to become very dependent on material things. As a result that person is going to suffer a psychological trauma if he/she loses his/ her possessions. And that is exactly what happens to Julian’s mother. When she loses her possessions, she keeps acting as if she still has them. Another factor that plays an important role in the formation of her personality is the fact that her family had slaves. The book Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglas says that “A slaveholder is a man-stealer” (37). The slaveholder is a man-stealer because “he robs a man of his body, soul, and spirit” (83). Although slavery can seem destructive to the slave only, the reality is that it destroys the humanity of the slaveholder too. Douglas narrates an example of this situation in the transformation of his former mistress Sophia Auld. He says that when he met Sophia, “she was a woman of the kindest heart and finest feelings who had never had a slave under her control” (63). But “slavery soon proved its ability to divest her of these heavenly qualities because under its influence, the tender heart became stone, and the lamblike disposition gave way to one of tiger-like fierceness” (66). As we can see, slavery impacts negatively both the slave and the slaveholder. Naturally, the slave suffers more because he is subjected to psychological and physical abuse; the slave-owner is subjected only to psychological abuse caused by his/her own actions. But even if owning a slave causes only psychological damage, that damage is enough to make people unfit to function in a normal society. Julian’s mother is an example of this type of person. [Keep going. How is she “unfit” or damaged by slavery so that she can’t have good relationships with blacks?]
Although the story does not mention exactly the time when she loses her political influence, her land, and her slaves, at some point of her life she lost them because we see her living in poverty during the story. But even if she lost everything, her personality is that of a person who can’t let go, even if only in her imagination, what she possessed before. Her identity as an influential, rich, and powerful person follows her even when she has none of that anymore. [This is good.] At one point in her life she blocks her mind to keep inside the imaginary things that once were real. We see those aspects of her life in the way she behaves with Julian and the people around her. For her, other people “are not like us” particularly the black people who “were better off as slaves” (625). As is the case with bitter persons, she also tries to pass her bitterness to other persons. She tries to shape the character of Julian exactly like hers. She wants Julian to act superior to other people. She wants him to act as the descendent of a governor, the descendent of a landowner, and the descendent of a slave owner. But Julian refuses to accept the fantasies of his mother. [Good point.]
O’Connor says that he “created a mental bubble inside of him in which he established himself when he could not bear to be part of what was going on around him” (627). He formed something like a shield around his mind in order to reject the fantasies of his mother. O’ Connor tells that Julian created this bubble not because he did not wish those fantasies to be real, but because he knew that they were not real: “their house, which he saw as a child, appeared in his dreams regularly” (625). The fact that those fantasies are not real anymore seems to bother him a lot. It is hard for him to listen to his mother about how his ancestors had a plantation and slaves, when the reality is that he is living in an apartment and the slaves are free. She says that they are the descendents of a governor but the reality is that his mother wants to return the hat that she just bought and instead “pay the gas bill with the seven-fifty” (624). It also seems to bother him how his mother views him as a successful college graduate but the reality is that he is an unemployed young man with no future (624). All these fantasies of his mother and his sad reality saturate him with depression. The combination of these factors creates a tense relationship between mother and son. [This is great use of quotes from the text in this section!]
O’Connor shows how the relationship between Julian and his mother gets to a point where he does not treat his mother as a human being, much less as his mother. The climax of this tense relationship is when they get off the bus and his mother attempts to give an African American child a penny. The child’s mother takes that action as an offense and hits Julian’s mother to the ground. This event brings to light the hatred of most white people toward African Americans in the South during the time of the story. Slavery had been abolished at that time but a lot of discrimination toward black people still persisted. The slaveholders treated the slaves as “children” because they saw them as persons who needed somebody to depend on. Julian’s mother still has that paternalistic attitude toward African Americans, but that attitude is not tolerated anymore for the child’s mother. [A feeling of superiority yes, but hatred? Paternalism is a better word and resentments go both ways; White-Black.]
Julian’s mother is victim of her own ill feelings and is knocked down to the floor. Julian’s gets close to her but not to help her but to make her suffer more. Instead of giving her words of support, he tells her “you got exactly what you deserved.” “Now get up” (632). He continues: “I hope this teaches you a lesson” (633). Sometimes in life we receive many hard lessons but we don’t learn them until it is too late. Julian’s mother received her last lesson the hard way. She did not want to learn that respect toward others creates peace, and disrespect toward others creates violence. And Julian’s inhuman attitude toward his mother is another example of how the normal human feelings can deteriorate because when she needs his help, he denies her that help. It is horrible to get to the level of Julian’s attitude. It is horrible to see a human being down and jump on her own son. It is horrible the way Julian behaves toward his fragile mother. But since every action provokes a reaction, Julian’s punishment is to be left to live with other horrible companions: guilt and sorrow. O’ Connor says “The tide of darkness seemed to sweep him back to her, postponing for a moment to moment his entry into the world of guilt and sorrow” (634). O’ Connor does not say more about Julian’s behavior after that terrible experience. But one good part of life is that humans always have a chance to right their wrongs. Even a person like Julian can have that chance. There is a saying “While there is life there is hope.” If Julian was able to find redemption later in his life, he understood that no matter how bad a person is, they still deserve compassion because at the end we all are imperfect human beings. [Julian, how mother and the woman on the bus! You might bring the story title in here at the close, but this is a very clear, well-supported essay. Nice work.]
Works Cited
Douglass, Frederick. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. Cheswold: Prestwick House/Literary Touchstone Press, 2004.
O’Connor, Flannery. “Everything that Rises Must Converge.” The Story and Its Writer. Ed. Ann Charters. Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2007. 623-634.