SPOILER ALERTS! In The Life, an elderly woman in desperate need for a man around the place, sacrifices her deaf-mute daughter in marriage to a ne'er-do-well who ultimately abandons the guileless girl in a diner miles from home as she sleeps, blissfully ignorant . In A Stroke, a childless woman who is prideful of her station in life, which she attributes in large part to the decision she and her husband made not to have children, realizes she is pregnant. This discovery is all the more traumatizing due to this woman's long-held belief that her own mother's final pregnancy was responsible for sending her to an early grave. And in A Good Man, a grandmother is the last victim of a serial killer who has already had his minions take the rest of the family off into the woods to be shot, including a mother, father, two young children, and an infant. I must admit I did not see that coming.
In the research on O'Connor, much is said of the influence her strongly-held religious beliefs had on her writing. Professor Ralph Wood, author of Flannery O'Connor and the Christ-Haunted South, goes so far as this: "Flannery O'Connor is the only great Christian writer this nation has produced." Though some may disagree with the professor, the themes of grace and redemption clearly run through the tales penned by the devoutly-catholic O'Connor. I can only comment on the the three stories I have read, and cannot say how representative these are on her body of work as a whole. When her characters behave in decidedly unchristian ways, through the grace of God they are given an opportunity to redeem their sins. In O'Connor's stories, as in life, that opportunity of grace is too often squandered.
Her stories are fascinating in their unflinching look at human nature. I am anxious to read more and if you are interested too, check out this site:
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