ENGL 4310

I cannot decide whether I should feel bad for Asbury in "The Enduring Chill" or if I should be laughing in his face. Obviously he feels that death would be a good thing. He was expecting it, and he wanted to teach his mother a lesson. He was happy when he came home, and his mom saw death in his face because he hoped that introducing her to "reality" would "assist her in the process of growing up" (547). But at the same time, I felt that he was the one who needed to grow up! I think this story is incredibly similar to "Everything that Rises Must Converge" because of the situation between the mother and son. (In fact, I feel that most of her stories are incredibly similar. Just like Todd was saying before, these stories are made up of the same elements just in a different order.)

I suppose I feel both sad and happy that Asbury did not die. Was the fact that he has undulant fever a mercy or a punishment? I want to think it's a punishment, but maybe this will give him some "significant experience" in life.

I also feel that there is a lot of intuition at play in this story, but I'm not quite sure how much of a part it plays in it. The only part that I can pinpoint is right before Asbury finds out he is not going to die. As Dr. Block comes up the stairs, "[Asbury] had a sudden terrible foreboding that the fate awaitig him was going to be mor eshattering than any he could have reckoned on" (571). I think that all of his "forebodings" and "insights" are the same thing as intuition. Does anyone else think this is at all important, or am I kind of stretching?

Sorry that this is so jumbled. I had a hard time with this story and am not quite sure what to make of it yet. Maybe I'll gain understanding over the weekend. :)

At first I was pretty wary of Mr. Shiftlet's character- it was the attitude he has, something so know-it-allish in the way he was so philosophical about everything around him that made me sigh. However, after I read the entire story, I have convinced myself that I am exactly the same way, just quieter about it, you know, just in case I am wrong-and most of what Shiftlet says is true. Coming up with a reason or a theory for everything is just human nature, and O'Connor is simply expounding upon this through Shiflet.
However, what I still want to know more about is despite Shiftlet seeming to be able to understand (or at least come up with an answer) about everything around him, he is still painfully unaware of what the old Lucynell has planned, at least not emotionally aware, until he is actually married to her daughter--which leads to end when it is so totally revealed that Mr. Shiftlet is also painfully unsure of what he wants as he reminisces about his mother to the teenage hitchhiker. This insecurity most very well could have been the reason for his coming to the farm in the first place--as a wanderer, a drifter, trying to find his place in the world at nearly thirty-years-old. All of this drifting and shifting really brings the obvious of Mr. Shiftlet's name. He has, after all, shifted from one place to another, still trying to find that niche.

Mr. Shiftlet is probably one of the most honest characters in this story. He is a liar, but at least he admits it. He is concerned with what makes a man. His conclusion is, “a man is divided into two parts, body and spirit” (179). Even though he has this small revelation, he is still at conflict. He marries her to get the car. Wrong, yes. But after he still feels remorse. “…it’s the law that don’t satisfy me…” (180). Perhaps, this can take on a more biblical meaning. He is looking for something beyond the law, something beyond the commandments. This is offered to him in the form of Lycynell Jr. She is his savior, or at least his chance at salvation.

I am still trying to decide if he comes to the realization of what he did at the end. I have read and reread the story trying to figure it out. Does he really save his own life at the end? In the grand scheme of things? He has a full revelation of what he is and what he has done, but is it enough? I don't think so. He left his vessel of salvation at the diner. Lucynell Jr. is described as innocent, angelic, "from gawd". She is dressed in colors that depict her innocence. White, blue, gold. Yet he leaves her. A little boy condemns him to hell, and jumps out of the car. Maybe I am just missing a piece, but it seems like he walked out on his chance.

So what do we do with the fact that we know Mr. Shiftlet is leaving in The Life You Save May Be Your Own? Naratologically, it builds tension.

In my theatre history class today we were talking about Epic theatre. An aspect of Epic Theatre (specifically as written/produced by Ersin Piscator) is that an actor would occasionally come on stage and tell exactly what was going to happen in the following scene. That would change the audience’s focus from watching what was happening to focus instead on how it was happening.

The fact we know Mr. Shiftlet is looking to get out of the place with the car makes this story even more of a case study of character. Instead of saying, “Is he going to take the car and leave them high and dry?” Instead, we ask, “I wonder why he feels it is so necessary to marry the daughter? Can’t he just take the car and go? Is it that he needs more money?” If our newfound wariness of helpful strangers isn’t enough, O’Connor writes in an obsession with the car for this man. He eyes the car and needs to make sure the car will start. He paints the car. For heaven’s sake, the Mother even puts Mr. Shiftlet there to stay! There is too much of a fixation there to ignore some sort of foreshadowing; we know he’s rollin’ out of the farm on those four wheels.

On that note, there was still a part of me that wanted to believe that maybe this story would be different. Maybe this unknown stranger will be a nice guy. But trial and error with O’Connor’s stories has lead me to know that a stranger coming to town, asking for work, and doing a really good job is actually an omen of the bottom dropping out of the “good things” bucket. Never mind whether or not they feel any sort of remorse, it is still a bad idea—especially if the farm owners really need the help…

P.S. Who is the title for/from?

I’ve noticed a pattern.

The first sentence in The Displaced Person is, “The peacock was following Mrs. Shortley up the road to the hill where she meant to stand.”

The first one in The Life You Save May Be Your Own is, “The Old Woman and her daughter were sitting on their porch when Mr. Shiftlet came up their road for the first time.”

The first sentence in Parker’s Back: “Parker’s wife was sitting on the front porch floor, snapping beans.”

A Good Man Is Hard To Find: “The Grandmother didn’t want to go to Florida.”

The Artificial Nigger: “Mr. Head awakened to discover that the room was full of moonlight.”

The Crop: “Miss Wellerton always crumbed the table.”

A Late Encounter with the Enemy: “General Sash was a hundred and four years old.”

The Violent Bear It Away: “Francis Marion Tarwater’s uncle had been dead…”

Greenleaf: “Mrs. May’s bedroom window was low and faced on the east…”

Wise Blood: “Hazel Motes sat at a forward angle…”

Judgment Day: “Tanner was conserving all his strength…”

The Geranium: “Old Dudley folded into the chair…”

The Lame Shall Enter First: “Sheppard sat on a stool…”

A Stroke of Good Fortune: “Ruby came in the front door…”

The Enduring Chill: “Asbury’s train…”

The Comforts of Home: “Thomas withdrew…”

The Partridge Festival: “Calhoun parked…"

28 stories. 17 with a name as the first word(s). 6 more with a character named in the first sentence. There is one that starts out with pure description.

So I’m thinking, what does this mean for Flannery O’Connor? Does this mean that she got into a rut on how to start a story? Does this mean that the setting and/or the themes are really secondary to her characters? Does this mean that she focuses on the characters? I got a little obsessed with this idea last night and Sara helped me go through 12-ish books of short stories (anthologies and collections). The verdict is that a little over half started out with a sentence naming a main character. That was sobering. I actually thought the number would be a lot lower, but it still doesn’t disprove anything. I still maintain that O’Connor starts her stories out with what is most important to her: her characters.

Maybe because of my experience with theatre, my mind reads for characters—what they say, their direct actions, and their settings are what are important to me. But I don’t really concern myself with a history of general characters or the beauty of a sunset… unless Mr. Shiftlet is standing in front of it with his arms raised in a twisted cross.

Because of blessed undergrad work, I am familiar with science and psychology and such, and I realized that there might be a bias in play in my late-night study. I know that I am more compelled to like stories that are character-centered, hence there would be resting on my bookshelf.

So, I am pretty sure I have a bias toward writers who would start out their stories with “Ms. Suzie Mae…”. One of these days, I would be interested to just go scan the library shelves and read first sentences (a wonderfully entertaining activity on its own) to look for main characters’ mention in the first sentence. But even still, I think Flannery O’Connor is an exception to that. I mean, come on, 82% of her stories name a main character in the first sentence. 82% is a big percent.

It has been brought up before how many stories that we have read deal with that of “keeping up appearances.” In “The Life You Save May Be Your Own” Mr. Shiftlet brings that subject up almost every single time that he speaks. When he introduces himself to the old woman, he brings up the fact that he very well could be lying to her. He does this in order to make the old woman think that if he was bringing up the fact that he could be lying is just showing how honest he is and that he really isn’t lying. (Even though we still don’t know if what he is saying is the truth.)
He is constantly bringing up the idea that “he hadn’t been raised thataway” (175) referring to being dishonest. But all the while he is doing the opposite of what he says he is. He says what he knows the old woman wants to hear and because of that gets what he wants, which is her money and the car. I think that the real reason he is constantly saying how good he is, is to try to prove to himself that he is a good man, instead of what he really is. But I do think that he really did feel bad for what he had done to the old woman. At the end of the story when Mr. Shiftlet has picked up the hitchhiker, he talks about how horrible he is for leaving his mother, which is really the old woman. Then after the hitchhiker jumps out of the car Mr. Shiftlet sees clouds that he believes are “the rottenness of the world” which are “about to engulf him” (183). But instead of really proving that he is a good man by going back, he runs from what he has done cementing that he is a dishonest man.

Ater reading "The Displaced Person" I was very curious about the meaning of the peacock. I did a quick google search, and though the sites I went to may not have been completely accurate, they did all say sort of the same thing. Here is what one particulary said:

Remember to tag your entries with the following terms, at least:

reflective
your name

Also, if you are having some nervousness (which would be understood) about your posts. Try typing them elsewhere or handwriting and then putting them into the Blogger tool. One word of caution about using Microsoft Word for this: it will add all kinds of strange formatting.

Use Notepad or another text editor to write stuff for copying and pasting in.

Kay and I would also like to encourage a broad range of responses, including stupefaction and ambivalence. What you've been doing is good, but it can also go other places as well.

Have fun storming the castle...

I noticed that in class and in some of the blogs the actual handicap that He has appears to be an uncomfortable subject that people seem to shy away from. As I was reading, however, that seemed to be the subject that I naturally gravitated towards. It's almost as if, regardless of what kind of handicap a person has, it is irrelevant to the fact that they are indeed handicapped and therefore Othered to all the "normal" people. Why is it that we shy away from everything that is outside of the norm? One example of this is when Mrs. Whipple's brother and his family come for dinner; I felt like there was an all-encompassing kind of tension that surrounded both families. They all seemed to be talking around the elephant in the room because it obviously made them uncomfortable. Mrs. Whipple begins to make excuses for His absence by saying "He's timider than my other two" (53) and goes on to justify Him and herself to her family. Her brother's wife, though, gives me the impression that she would just rather avoid the awkward subject altogether. Rather than commenting about Him, she turns the conversation to her "Alfy." Also, the second time He is brought up, Mrs. Whipple's brother simply states "That's fine, He's getting along fine" (53) which abruptly ends any conversation that may have started with Him as the focal point.

I feel like it is important to discuss what kind of handicap this child may have because different handicaps have very different consequences. I had the feeling that He may have been autistic. My sister works with autistic adults, and said that they all had widely varying degrees of severity. If this is the case with Him, I would say he is highly functional and actually pretty intelligent. He responds to his mother's demands and can accomplish things the other two children either won't or can't do. His major setbacks are the fact that he can't talk and seems to be physically different than other children his age. The thing that really bugged me while I was reading this was when they took his blanket and Mrs. Whipple said "He never seemed to mind the cold" (50). I was talking to my sister, and she said that many autistic people have very keen senses and they often reach out for physical contact. This would mean that, if He is autistic, he would likely be more sensitive to the cold than his siblings, but because He can't talk, they either assume He doesn't mind, or perhaps they just know He can't object. It would be interesting to explore the implications of other disabilities and how they would change our perceptions of this reading.

Today's discussion in class on "He" really stuck with me. I realize now that even though I wrote a blog on "He" I was really avoiding the things that stuck out to me. I have been wondering why talking about this story puts conversation at a stand still, and I think the conclusion that I have come to (for me personally) is that I am afraid that if I were in the same situation, I would do what the family does to Him. I believe that I wouldn't, and I would definitely pray that I wouldn't, but they probably never thought they were doing anything wrong. His mother probably convinced herself that she was treating him well, that she was a loving mother. I think she had to have done this; otherwise, she probably wouldn't have been able to live with herself. Or at least, I don't think I could live with myself if I was intentionally neglecting a child.

And of course I was avoiding talking (no, I avoided even thinking) about the fact that He is handicapped. I am not sure why this is exactly. Does it truly make me that uncomfortable? I can't imagine that it would because I have a nephew with down syndrome, and I am fine when I around him. We play games and have fun together. Of course, it was hard when I first met him (he's actually my husband's brother's son...figure that out!), but it took little to no time to see him as just another person.

I think the reason it was hard to connect with this story on a personal level is just what Sara said. We don't really know Him, so we don't know how to relate to Him. I will say that Porter does a great job of addressing issues in her stories that are so hard to talk about. Could it be that writing things down is easier than saying them out loud? (hence why I'm writing this in a blog instead of saying it in class) I think so, perhaps this is why we can have more "revolutionary" literature than speeches. It's so much easier to write it because you can revise it to say what you want to say, and also you don't have to look into the eyes of people as you say these things. You don't have to worry that someone is judging you. But of course, this whole question of written versus spoken is a completely different point.

I realize that we have been talking about "Parker's Back" a lot, and I hope I'm not beating it to death, but the discussion in class on Thursday led me to a sort of theory that, for me, puts this story into perspective a little bit. I was thinking about something that Kay said a while ago in relation to physical stimulus being the cause of emotion. She said that perhaps Parker does not feel a lot of emotion so he puts these marks on his body in order to entice some sort of emotional response. She said this before we were supposed to read the story, so as I was reading that was in the back of my mind. I, however, found the opposite to be true. I felt that Parker had such strong emotions and, for some reason, he couldn't efficiently convey those emotions to the people around him, which is why he was constantly seeking new tattoos. Every time something significant happened, he ran out and got a tattoo as a way of expressing himself. He did this until there was virtually no space left on the front of his body; he had expressed himself to the fullest extent of his capabilities and it still wasn't enough because Sarah Ruth still misunderstood him.

When Parker collides with the tree, for some reason that I am still not sure of, this results in a flood of emotion. So what does he do? He wants another tattoo of course. Parker tells us that he only wanted tattoos in places where he could easily see them, which suggests that they were primarily for his own benefit. The fact that he places a tattoo in a place where likely the only person who will see it is his wife strongly suggests that it is for her and her only. Also, this seems to be the first time that the subject of a tattoo has any significance for him. He is desperately reaching out to her, trying to connect with her, and she doesn't recognize the figure or even acknowledge the fact that this tattoo was the only one placed on his back. This leads me to why I believe Parker was attracted to Sarah in the first place. When he first met her, she had such a strong emotional reaction to his body art that perhaps he thought he had finally found someone with whom he could communicate. Although her reaction may not have been the one he was looking for, perhaps he thought that by doing this selfless thing, by carving an engraving of God onto his back for her, he could finally fill up the emptiness within himself.

I found He to be one of the most disturbing stories we've read yet. Perhaps because I am a mother and this story surrounds a CHILD. Even so, this "simple-minded" child seems to have no name. He is talked about, but seldom talked to, and He is treated more like the bull or pig on thier farm. He grows and grows as he eats "squatting in the corner, smacking and mumbling. Rolls of fat covered Him like an overcoat" (p.50). Mrs. Whipple calls him "a monkey, just a regular monkey" and says he knows what he's doing; but she doesn't believe he knows anything. It's not difficult to see "Him" as the pig (not at all unlike what O'Conner does in her stories with a type of transumption imbued in her forshadowing). The scene on p.52 when He snatches the baby pig from it's mama and Mrs. Whipple butchers it, is key (a type of metalepsis). He, too, will soon be snatched away from his mother in a way like the fattened pig to the slaughter. Mrs. Whipple has pushed her children before her to go in and face the sow and because the girls have "sense" enough to object, He is always sacrificed. By the time the pig is butched her view of the little pig may be imbued with her views of her own son: ". . . ; the sight of the pig scraped pink and naked made her sick. He was too fat and soft and pitiful looking. It was simply a shame the way things had to happen."
The later "Bull" scene on p. 55 also seems a transumption. He can be seen as the bull being pulled around by the nose:

He came on very slowly, leading the big hulk of an animal by a ring in the nose.
. . . Mrs. Whipple was scared sick of bulls; she had heard awful stories
about how they followed on quietly enough, and then suddenly pitched on with
a bellow and pawed and gored a body to pieces.

You can see how this is a type of forshodowing (He will indeed suddenly pitch on when he falls and siezes) that is imbued with how Mrs. Whipple sees Him (like and animal) as well as how she feels about him (scared sick of him). Mrs. Whipple's preception of her son as an animal is witnessed in her belief that he has no feelings, or at least not those as accute as her own, not just physically (he wears no shoes and goes without a blanket) but psycologically:

Mrs. Whipple couldn't believe what she saw; He was scrubbing away big
tears that rolled out of the corners of His eyes. He sniveled and made a
gulping noise. Mrs. Whipple kept saying, "Oh, honey, you don't feel so
bad, do you? You don't feel so bad, do you?"

Do not misunderstand me, what I am saying here is not He = animal. What I am saying is that these scene's, almost stories within a story, are there to give us further insight into what is happening in the main story. I am suggesting that these metalepsies are giving insight into how Mrs. Whipple views her own child and how thier relationship works. It is obvious to the reader that she is a proud woman that is constantly concerned with how others view her, but these insights help us to better understand how she views her her son. What she says to others are often lies ("I just took off His big blanket to wash") that are nothing more than a front to make herself look or feel better herself and are not an honest representation of how she really feels about her son.

Porter's "The Fig Tree" was interesting to me because of the point of view. Miranda is this naive little girl who seems to have so much more insight than the adults who "know so much more than her." I love how Miranda questions the adults (for instance, when they are about to leave, and the father threatens to leave without them. She becomes very upset, and he says, "Baby, you know we wouldn't leave you for anything" and she wants to reply, "Then why did you say so?" (356).) I am always intrigued when a story is told from a child's perspective because it is one that I am not so used to thinking from, but when I finally do, I realize how interesting the world really is, and yet how confusing it is at the same time. This story probably would not have been interesting at all if told from an adult's point of view because there would be no story to tell. "Oh my grand-niece thought there were noises coming from the ground, but I told her they were the tree frogs and everything was fine." Not interesting at all.

It makes me wonder how Porter's "He" would have been different if it had been told from His perspective. I wonder if he would have thought that his parents were neglectful, I wonder if he really was cold all the time, or if he was scared of the bull and sow. I wish I were more creative and could write a story from His perspective that would do Him some justice. Perhaps that's what makes this story so intriguing. We have no idea what He thinks, and yet we wish we did. Obviously he has feelings, and obviously he has to be thinking. I remember a short story I read in another class called "The Letter A" by Christy Brown (which was also made into a movie that I should watch). It's about Christy Brown himself, who seemed utterly incapable of thought or speech when he was born. But his mother knows that his brain isn't dead, just that his body doesn't work as well. So she spends time teaching him, and after many years he learns to write with his left foot. This story is an autobiography of Christy Brown, and the excerpt I have read is amazing. I plan on reading the entire book someday, but I lack time when I'm in school. Anyway, I couldn't get Christy Brown out of my head as I was reading "He" because I knew there was another side to the story, and I was yearning to get it.

I wish to know why others think she wrote from the perspective that she did. Is it that she herself couldn't get into the mindset of a disable person? Did she think that no one would care if it were from that perspective? Did she think that we would learn more from looking at the situation from the mother's point of view? Did she just write it without thinking about that? (No, I don't believe she did such a thing, though it could be possible). Any opinions?

I have been fascinated by the NPR segment we heard on Tues. and how it works with the body responses--the unarticulated sensations--that we see in both the O'Connor and Porter works.
So---I've been reading a bit of William James on "pure experience"-- and offer you this quotation:

But a last cry of non possumus will probably go up from many readers. All very pretty as a piece of ingenuity, they will say, but our consciousness itself intuitively contradicts you. We, for our part, know that we are conscious. We feel our thought, flowing as a life within us, in absolute contrast with the objects which it so unremittingly escorts. We can not be faithless to this immediate intuition. The dualism is a fundamental datum: Let no man join what God has put asunder. (Essay I § 8 ¶ 1)

My reply to this is my last word, and I greatly grieve that to many it will sound materialistic. I can not help that, however, for I, too, have my intuitions and I must obey them. Let the case be what it may in others, I am as confident as I am of anything that, in myself, the stream of thinking (which I recognize emphatically as a phenomenon) is only a careless name for what, when scrutinized, reveals itself to consist chiefly of the stream of my breathing. The I think which Kant said must be able to accompany all my objects, is the I breathe which actually does accompany them. There are other internal facts besides breathing (intracephalic muscular adjustments, etc., of which I have said a word in my larger Psychology), and these increase the assets of consciousness, so far as the latter is subject to immediate perception; but breath, which was ever the original of spirit, breath moving outwards, between the glottis and the nostrils, is, I am persuaded, the essence out of which philosophers have constructed the entity known to them as consciousness. That entity is fictitious, while thoughts in the concrete are fully real. But thoughts in the concrete are made of the same stuff as things are. (Essay I § 8 ¶ 2)

If you're interested in more of James and "pure experience" there is, of course, a website with his publications in the Principles of Psychology:

"Does Consciousness Exist?"

Obadiah means servant of the Lord. In 1 Kings 18 the steward of Ahab who protected the prophets of God from Jezebel was named Obadiah. In 2 Kings there is a prophet named Obadiah. I also tried to look up Elihue. Elihu means God is he. This may give us a clue as to why Parker's wife may have been interested in him. I'm also finding myself fascinated with O'Connor's reoccurring imagery in her stories. In the beginning of Parker's Back we are introduced to his tattoos with the one on his arm of the eagle on the cannon and the serpent with hearts trailing between (p.657). This is given shortly after he has called his future wife a "hawk-eyed angel wielding a hoary weapon" when she attacks him with a broom. This foreshadows the end of the story in which she is doing just that again. O'Conner echos her imagery all the time and we see recurring pictures. The tree aflame with Parker's burning shoes under it and later Sarah Ruth shouting at Parker "Idolatry! Enflaming yourself with idols under every green tree (p. 674)!" Then again Parker is under the pecan tree "crying like a baby."
O'Conner does this in all of her stories. In Revelation the two main scenes in the story take place in or by a pig pen, or at least a small wall enclosed room. The first pig pen (the waiting room) Mrs. Turpin is in and is called a "warthog from hell." The second one Mrs. Turpin is able to view from the outside.
One of my favorite images that may be more than foreshadowing, and is brilliant, is in A Good Man is Hard to Find on p. 139 in our book:

They passed a large cotton field with five or six graves fenced in the middle of
it, like a small island. "Look at the graveyard!" the grandmother
said, pointing it out. "That was the old family burying ground. That
belonged to the plantation." Where's the plantation? John Wesley
asked. "Gone With the Wind," said the grandmother. "Ha. Ha."

O'Conner's stories are crafted so well, everything so woven together, that paying attention to her details gives insight into the story's themes. I haven't yet made any conclusions about Parker's Back but it could be my favorite.

As I have been reading these short stories, I am struck by how appearances are so important by the characters. "Noon Wine," "Parker's Back," "He," etc. I know that we are like this today; we don't want to lose face. We can't do anything that would make us lower in the eyes of our friends, family, or colleagues. I can understand it, but at the same time, I am so amazed how far some of these characters take it. Parker gets himself tattooed all over, and Mr. Thompson kills himself because people don't believe his story. Everything these characters do is surrounded by the thoughts of "What would people think?"

On a funny tangent, that reminded me of the "What Would Jesus Do?" emblems. Not to seem sacrilegious or anything, but that is the ultimate incentive of doing what is "right" to keep up appearances. I wonder why we as humans take it so far? Why do we do such dramatic things just to get someone to like us? Why does Parker stress over a tattoo that will please his wife so much? Why does Mr. Thompson kill himself because people don't believe him? Why does he think that committing suicide will cause people to finally believe his story? In short, why do we care what people think? (which, of course, is different for everyone, but maybe there is an ultimate trend?)

These blog posts intimidate me.

I have an aversion (that I haven’t quite figured out yet) to theorizing. It may be my undeveloped understanding of theory, but far too often in my readings, theory feels like far-fetched speculation substantially removed from the core of the story (or poem). As I said, I haven’t really figured out where this comes from, but it is a comfort to run across accomplished writers and teachers that I catch similar vibes from.

I was reading from the O’Connor extras in our book and on the bottom of 853, the text reads, “I’m frequently appalled at the questions students ask me about my stories and at the very learned and literary interpretations they come up with. I was recently at a college where a student asked me, in a voice loaded with cunning: ‘Miss O’Connor, what is the significance of the Misfit’s hat?’ Of course, I had no idea the Misfit’s hat was significant, but finally I managed to say, ‘Its significance is to cover his head.’ Those students went away thinking that here was a real innocence, a writer who didn’t know what she was doing!”

I think Flannery O’Connor knew what she was doing. I believe she was aware that she put a hat on the Misfit’s head, and as she said here, it was to cover his head. We already discussed this idea of letting theory run away with a piece with our first “treat” of the semester. It gets out of hand sometimes, and I am afraid I tend to err on the safe side of extrapolation. That said, I will continue with a legitimate post.

In Parker’s Back, I fixated on the attraction the characters had (and did not have) for one another. My favorite comedic moment in the story is on page 663. Just after Parker made his move on Sarah Ruth in his truck (and she puts an abrupt stop to them—score one for the women), Parker “made up his mind then and there to have nothing further to do with her.” Then we have a graph break. The next sentence is: “They were married in the County Ordinary’s office because Sarah Ruth thought churches were idolatrous.” That is simply perfect. I laughed out loud when I was reading, and I don’t laugh out loud when reading. That exchange is a microcosm of their relationship in general. It’s a moment that I tick off on the summary list of The Nature of the Main Characters’ Relationship.

Through the story, Parker is compelled (intuitively?) to follow through with things in his head that he wants out of. The story starts out with and explanation of how Parker couldn’t understand why he hadn’t left his wife yet, then moves to how they got together in the first place, which still doesn’t make sense.

Sarah Ruth’s attraction to Parker is as compelling as Parker’s to Sarah Ruth. Parker is compelled to be with Sarah Ruth despite what his head says. That is evident due to our focalization through Parker’s head. (We are set up for that from the first two words: “Parker’s wife…”. We are set up for seeing things as they relate to Parker.) But Sarah Ruth’s place in the marriage is, for me, rooted in being married off and taken care of. She comes from a large, hungry family, after all. We also learn that she is intrigued by Parker’s tattoos, no? She lets her guard down when he first asks which one is her favorite, and she says that, “…the chicken is not as bad as the rest.” So there is something in those tattoos for her, even if it is further providing that Parker is flawed and she can save him, in multiple senses of the word.

That is a start, but what else is keeping these two together? In the “after the story ends” world, do they stay together? I like to think so, but I don’t think I can articulate why quite yet. Any thoughts?

Big and little. Look carefully at the images on the wall.




From Grandma Great's house in Manti, Utah

A.K.A. Grandma Great's house in Manti.

You can play through that entire segment of the RadioLab program I brought into class on Tuesday from the player below.



The whole show is available at This Link.

Good work in discussion. Remember to get your reflective posts in so they don't bunch up on you.

As I was reading "Noon Wine," I was noticing all of the times when intuition comes into play. During class today, I was stuck on this idea of intuition and how feelings and emotions are always inferior to reason. In a way, I think that Porter is trying to reverse those binaries a little bit in "Noon Wine." There are many passages where people feel like something is wrong but don't know why. There are two instances that stick out to me the most. The first is when Mrs. Thompson catches Mr. Helton shaking her boys. She says that it made her uneasy but was not something that "she could put into words, hardly into thought" (237). The second instance that sticks out to me is between Mr. Thompson and Mr. Hatch. Throughout the entire conversation Mr. Thompson keeps feeling like Mr. Hatch is trouble, but he can't figure out why. All Mr. Thompson knows is that he "didn't like it, but he couldn't get a hold of it" (250).

Obviously, one of the roles of intuition in this story is to keep the reader interested. I know that I couldn't wait to find out why the Thompsons kept having these feelings that something just wasn't right. But I also think that Porter is really saying that sometimes we just know things without knowing them (if that makes sense). If either Mr. or Mrs. Thompson had acted upon their intuitions and gotten rid of the people causing their discomfort, Mr. Thompson never would have become a murderer. But they don't act on their feelings because feelings are supposed to be silly. You only act when you know something. Who acts in a "crazy" way (like kicking someone out) when they only have feelings to back it up?

Then again, this is exactly what Mr. Thompson does. When he kills Mr. Hatch, he isn't thinking about it logically. He doesn't take the time to assess the situation and think of the repercussions. If he had, he probably wouldn't have struck Mr. Hatch with the axe. Instead of thinking it through logically, Mr. Thompson acts on pure adrenaline and impulse. He sees Mr. Hatch lunging for Mr. Helton, and he acts.

Now I'm not sure what to get out of this story. I can't decide if Porter is trying to flip the binaries and put intuition before logic, or if she is saying that we should think things through before acting (so we don't end up murdering someone). Perhaps she is saying both? Or maybe she's saying nothing of the sort.

After reading a page or two of "The Artificial Nigger," I became keenly aware of a tension which existed between Mr. Head and his grandson. In our class discussion on Thursday, I felt that the class assumed Mr. Head was the authority figure in the relationship, but I never got that impression. It felt like the relationship between the sixty-something old man and the young boy was missing a critical element, and I ultimately came to the conclusion that this missing aspect was the presence of the second generation.
Throughout their journey, Nelson continually attempts to hide his dependence on his grandfather while Mr. Head seems determined to maintain his pride despite his obvious short-comings. Both Nelson and Mr. Head try to hide the inadequacies which come as a result of their age in order to gain the upper hand in the relationship. Nelson does not have the wisdom which comes from experience and as a result he has no other choice than to rely on his grandfather. Mr. Head, on the other hand, seems forgetful and becomes easily lost when he is placed in a new environment, which is likely a result of his advanced age. These circumstances throw their relationship off balance because there is a constant shifting of power and it is never allowed to reach equilibrium.

Another component of this relationship which I found interesting were both the physical and characteristic similarities between Nelson and Mr. Head. This may suggest that Nelson is, in some degree, a personification of Mr. Head as a young man. If this is the case, we never see the middle aged equivalent of Mr. Head; just the young and old versions. The forty-something Mr. Head would undoubtedly be the more authoritative figure because he would be in the prime of his life and contain both a degree of wisdom, which Nelson lacks, and a keenness of mind, which the "old" Mr. Head is beginning to lose.

I believe that it's not possible to tag our comments about other members' postings. Is that correct? Does that mean, then, that when we make comments, they are not available to us for searching? For example, I just commented on Neena's post about mercy in "The Artificial Nigger," and would like to be able to find it again if I want to do a paper on mercy or on theory of theology. Help from the blog experts?

Revelation is a great example of what I think O'Conner tries to do to her readers. She loves to yank that rung out from under your feet and drop you hard to the bottom of the ladder. It may not be quite so painful for us as it is her characters, but we could also simply find ourselves in denial. That was especially easy for me to fall victim to in Everything that Rises must Converge. Love that story! It is so easy to identify with Julian and disdain his mother. We are waiting with him in anticipation of her "face" experience, on the edge of our seats to discover her reaction to the black woman's hat. Her death is a surprise to the reader, shocking us like it does Julian into the realization that our enjoyment has all gone too far. We recognize that Julian is the one who has had the rung yanked out form under him and we've been standing with him. I viewed him as he did himself as somehow better than these women on the bus and better than his mother. By the end of the story I could see that as an educated man he deemed himself somehow better then others as well. He believed he would have been able to appreciated his grandfather's old mansion more then others, more than his mother, because he simply understood more. The reality was that, even knowing about his mother's condition, he hoped she might be confronted and experience the tension and stress she, in his mind, justly deserved. By the end we can see that the son's switching mothers on the bus was a reflection of their reality and opportunity for them both to confront who they are. Julian faced who he really is, a child who was antagonizing his mother. He behaved childishly throughout the story. By the end the reader finds herself asking if she is any different.

For my tester blog I thought I'd take Kay's challenge to discuss mercy in The Artificial Nigger. I find myself fascinated with the equalizing forces that exist in O'Conner's works. In this particular story it is the "artificial nigger." Why that? Perhaps because at this most humbling moment in Mr. Head's life he is able to understand that his perception of Blacks as being the most unworthy and lowest of beings has been an artificial one. He has sat upon the trash can lid, stooped behind a trash bin and denied his own grandson. He recognizes his own headiness and that recognition, occurring for both he and Nelson, triggers the mercy. "They could both feel [the artificial nigger] dissolving their differences like an action of mercy" (p.230). Christ condescended all men and his mercy views all men on equal terms. All are in need of that mercy and all may receive it. Humility and mercy reduce Head's "lofty" statement to a colloquial sounding one that is still profound to the two of them. We know Nelson shares in the humility and mercy of this moment when he says: "Let's go home before we get ourselves lost again." He acknowledges that they have been lost, both literally and figuratively speaking, and that they are equally at fault --neither at this point blames the other. On the train they both approach the door "ready to jump off it if it does not stop," as they see themselves as insignificant and may be readily overlooked. Finally, Head seems to recognize that mercy has been granted him throughout the entirety of his life though unbeknownst to him. "He had never thought himself a great sinner before but he saw now that his true depravity had been hidden from him lest it cause him despair," the greatest mercy of all (p.231). "He saw that no sin was too monstrous for him to claim as his own" the equalizing force in this story has been a cleansing one in that "since God loved in proportion as He forgave, he felt ready at that instant to enter Paradise."
I've already written enough, but I'd like to examine further the ghost images these two characters take on and their black and white view of things. I'm intrigued by the references to angles on the first page of the narrative and how they then related to the ghostly image they take on. Head's position of guide is equated to that of Vergil's who guides Dante from the lower regions of Hell to the gates of paradise, but cannot enter those gates himself. By the end of this story, however, the gates of paradise seem to be wide in admittance of both characters. If anyone has insights, I'd love to hear them!

I just barely finished reading "Rope" by Porter, and I have to say I found it incredibly amusing. The sad thing was that it reminded me of arguments that I have had with my own husband, so it made me think quite a bit. Obviously, the wife isn't simply upset that her husband bought rope instead of coffee. It was the fact that he bought something that he wanted instead of getting her what she wanted. Of course she took this action to mean that he didn't love her because he didn't think of her when he was shopping. At least, that's how I saw it because I have been in her shoes and thought similarly idiotic things. But of course, she had had reason to believe that he didn't love her because he had cheated on her one summer:

He was tired of explaining. It may have looked funny but he had simply got hooked in, and what could he do? It was impossible to believe that she was going to take it seriously. Yes, yes, she knew how it was with a man: if he was left by himself a minute, some woman was certain to kidnap him. And naturally he couldn't hurt her feelings by refusing! (45)

I also loved how there was no actual dialogue in this story. Obviously, people are talking, but there are no quotes or "he said/she said." I thought about why this might be while I was reading the story and also after I was done, and the conclusion I came to was that the things they are saying really aren't important, which is why there is no reason to directly quote them. This conversation is probably repeated a thousand times over (only next time it might be a lantern that he buys instead of rope), so obviously the words don't really stick. It is also obvious from the way they "speak" to each other that they are not listening to what the other person is really saying. It seems as if they are really just saying whatever is expected of them. Of course he has to defend her accusation of him cheating on her; that is what is expected, and he has probably said it to her before.

Another part of the story that shows the conversation is immaterial is at the very end when the husband returns from the store with the coffee, and the wife is suddenly happy again. She has what she wants (coffee), and so he can have what he wants too (rope).

I am finding a trend that the use of quotations is not really relevant in Porter's stories. I think that might be something I would like to look into further. In "The Jilting of Granny Weatherall" we also discussed how in that story the quotes don't always mean that someone is actually speaking. I'm excited to see if other stories she has written are similar in this way.

In class today, Neena mentioned O'Connor's use of color words in "The Artificial Nigger." It got me to reflecting on my own perception of the story, what colors I saw it in as I read, and I think it just played out as a sepia-toned movie for me, with lots of wide angle shots and not much music. On page 228 in our O'Connor text, the narrator says The sun dropped down behind a row of houses. This startled me a little when I first read it; I had been imagining so much of what precedes page 228, including Mr. Head hiding from and then denying any relationship with Nelson, in dusk and even total darkness. Though I won't rule it out completely, I don't think my misunderstanding was a result of not reading carefully enough. O'Connor just did a really good job of making the day in the city feel very, very long and aimless. All the circling and recircling of brick buildings seemed to last for many hours, at least to me. It sounds a little elementary, but I think I've settled on concluding that the hazy, night aspect of that key scene in which Mr. Head says, "This is not my boy ... I've never seen him before," doesn't come from the angle of the sun in the sky. It comes from the surreal situation and from inside of the man himself.

The scene I pondered on the most from "The Artificial Nigger" wasn't one we touched on in class, so I'd like to work on it here. On page 222, Nelson asks the black woman for directions back to town. They have a short exchange, after which O'Connor writes,

He stood drinking in every detail of her. His eyes traveled up from her great knees to her forehead and then made atriangular path from the glistening sweat on her neck down and across her tremendous bosom and over her bare arm back to where her fingers lay hidden in her hair. He suddenly wanted her to reach down and pick him up and draw him against her and then he wanted to feel her breath on his face. He wanted to look down and down into her eyes while she held him tighter and tighter. He had never had such a feeling before. He felt as if he were reeling down through a pitchblack tunnel. (pg. 223)

Geez, Louise - that's beautiful writing. It really speaks to me about the loneliness of being a kid, and about the racial/social struggle that Nelson in particular is obliged to be a part of. This woman is mocking him mildly, and she's looked down upon by his grandfather, but to Nelson, she's a woman, just as the big black man on the train was a man, a fat man, an old man to him. And right then, Nelson wanted a motherly woman to hold him tight and care for him. It's not as though he gets much affection from his grandfather, and, to our knowledge, who else is there? For a child to connect so solidly with a stranger suggests that there aren't other adults around to turn to for that validation, which, from a child development perspective, is not really that rare.

I think I'm definitely cross-contaminating my class discussions and personal reflections from Robin's Young Adult Lit course with 4310. I'm really noticing that theme of adolescent loneliness in our reading ... Anyhow, I love it when that happens - not the loneliness, the cross-contaminating.

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