ENGL 4310

I had made an earlier post about my obsession with the hats that we see in O'Connor and Porter's stories. As primitive as it was, my original post was a start to something I could see in the representation of the hats in our authors' stories. Now go with me on this...the hats...I believe, are a "vehicle" if you will, to show the ignorance of what they really are. The characters in the stories were the hats are mentioned or have some importance in the story, are completely unaware of how other people see them. For instance in "Everything That Rises Must Converge," Julian's mother believes one thing (that her hat is fabulous) and doesn't realize (at least in Julian's eyes) that it is actually very hideous...reminiscent of the picture I embedded. It is almost like a sign saying "take a good hard look at me, I'm blind to what I really am." It is certainly an interesting concept much like my idea of "miserable awkwardness" I mentioned before. This is brilliance--that O'Connor takes the uncomfortable and what we naturally avoid and takes us deep into the story than we'd like to choose...and in the end it is twisted and reflected on us...the reader and we realize the reality of what we are.