ENGL 4310

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."