Rachel pointed out in her blog that both Hulga and Asbury are reduced, by O’Conner, to the level of children. This is another technique she uses to level her characters or pull the rung, or rug, out from under them. It is also interesting to me how O’Conner collapses her characters in order to do this same thing. In The Enduring Chill, O’Conner seems to collapse Morgan and Randall, the “negro” hands, with Asbury. Understanding their class level or social expectation is important here. They are considered no brighter than children, perhaps even less so. They are merely hands, uneducated hands, on the farm. Asbury sees himself as more intelligent than his mother, or any of them, but identifies with the hands on some level. He believes his mother sees them equally (like a parent may view a child) and he would appeal to their desire for freedom from an oppression. What is fascinating is to recognize that the rules his mother has for the farm hands have a purpose. Don’t smoke in the dairy or the milk will taste bad. Don’t drink the fresh milk, it can make you sick. What the farm hands are willing to accept in pure faith in Mrs. Fox and her rules, Asbury is not. His assumption is that his mother is merely controlling and that you need a limited intelligence and no skills to run the dairy. His intellect supersedes what these people have or need. But even his superior intellect cannot save him from faithless his stupidity. It is a lesson in humility and adherence to a faith in others. Do you recognize this collapsing of characters in any of O’Conner’s other stories?