Talk:Flannery O'Connor

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[edit] Comments

Not quite sure how to approach this page. I think she's important enough to warrant a large amount of information, but not more than some other writers in the canon, that haven't been developed quite enough yet.

Can anyone point me to a faq/discussion of the viability/usefulness of including critical reviews of an author/author's works on Wikipedia?

thanks

Flannery O'Connor's fiction, essays and letters was deeply compassionate about the crisis of faith in a religionless age: "Nihilism is the gas we breathe," she once observed. "I think there is no suffering greater than what is caused by the doubts of those who want to believe. I know what torment this is, but I can only see it, in myself anyway, as the process by which faith is deepened. What people don't realize is how much religion cost." O'Connor frequently lectured on university campuses, and often addressing the tension between intellect and religious convictions.

[edit] A Flannery O'Connor page without a quotations section?!!

The title says it all...where's the quotes?!Iamlondon 04:04, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

This is a good point. I'll try and add some later this month, I'm writing a senior thesis on Flannery right now and don't have much time. 71.103.242.56 17:53, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Popularity among Catholics

But she was never very popular with Catholics, and still isn't...has some sort of formal poll been conducted? I don't see how this information can be backed up. It seems very POV-driven to me. Anyone else picking up on this? – Beginning 20:52, Feb 13, 2005 (UTC)

I would say that she was and still is definitely popular amongst Southerners, which would not include a lot of Catholics. I think that she is more generally regarded as a Southern writer, although current books about her spirituality seem to come from Catholic perspectives and stress this aspect of her religious belief.

If someone claimed that most young people nowadays have no interest in the music of Dean Martin, do we really need a poll to back that up? I personally can attest to the fact that most of the Catholics I know rank O'Connor far below G. K. Chesterton or Graham Greene, if they rank her at all. 64.12.116.73 05:52, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Even if we accept this as generally true (I personally rank her above Chesterton and I am Catholic), is it a very encyclopedic thing to say? I don't see how it advances the article to say that people are of the opinion that she isn't popular among Catholics.


Most American Catholics I know put her before chesterton and greene. I say take it out. Squanderdalfast 03:48, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Lesbianism?

"However, The Habit of Being hints at a possible lesbian relationship. O'Connor's suggestion that Catholics have to accept suffering from their Church as well as for it seems to support this allegation."

This quote is certainly not enough of a base from which to suggest that Flannery had lesbian relationships. When I read this quote I thought it applied much more to her sense that the church was at times too authoritarian - she mentions the 'index' and the literary sentiments of many catholics expressly to suggest that she did not always feel as if she fit in. 'THOB' highlights Flannery's passion for orthodoxy as well as her earnestness in defence of the Catholic church's moral positions. I think the reference to her lesbianism should be removed unless there is clearer evidence that these relationships took place.

The "accept suffering" remark is not the actual hint being alluded to. The Habit of Being contains a letter from O'Connor to her closest friend, who oddly remained anonymous in the book. In this letter, Flannery gleefully relates that the day after her friend spent the night at the O'Connor household, the maid informed Flannery's mother that the guest bed had not been slept in, and Flannery's mother angrily told the maid to mind her own business. The implication is clear that O'Connor and her friend probably slept together. Whether O'Connor was provably a lesbian or not, the mere possibility, especially when contrasted to her unshakable devotion to a Church that condemns homosexual activity, provides a valuable clue towards understanding her motives and her work. 64.12.116.73 05:52, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

What's the date of this letter? If you can't locate it, should you still be including it as a "hint"?
I dont think Flannery O'Connor was a lesbian. And I see no reason for you to believe that either. just because she had a friend that was a woman means nothing. and just because she was catholic means nothing either. she loved her work and was in love with that. I can understand that she didnt want a man interfearing in her works.
Having read all of Flannery O'Connor's work, including THOB, I feel completely certain that this whole lesbianism hogwash is just sensationalism. The reason she "gleefully" relates it is obvious if you study her letters at all; she LOVED controversy, and she was never more pleased than when her actions caused a stir among the genteel Southern ladies. Take, for instance, her excitement about the stir caused by her friend Maryat Lee's liberal northern ideas after her visit. The idea that a sleepover makes a woman a lesbian... is beyond silly and not worth mentioning. Further, there is little connection to suggest that pain caused by the Church = homosexual turmoil. It's absurd. Flannery O'Connor notes that "before [Grace] heals, it cuts with the sword Christ says he came to bring" in another letter. O'Connor merely believed that life was not all flowers and roses, that "there is nothing harder or less sentimental than Christian realism." The O'Connor lesbian concept is nothing more than groundless sensationalism and does not belong in any serious NPOV piece. Also note that the anonymity was so at the friend's request; "A" was identified recently as Betty Hester after her own death. Biasedbulldog 23:15, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Restoring comment on sexuality

I have re-inserted the possibility that O'Connor was a lesbian, along with criticism of that scenario. I have no proof--I don't see why I need any, since I admitted it was only a possibility--but the evidence requested is above. Do a little research, and you'll find that Ms. O'Connor's sexuality has been debated before. I notice some people react to the possibility of O'Connor being a lesbian as if it were a form of slander (Gee, I wonder why?) but that doesn't mean that it's not suitable for the article. 64.12.116.73 06:21, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

You mention in some detail a letter O'Connor wrote to her friend "A" - but as has been asked by two people below, what is the date of this lettter?

[edit] Response to lesbian claim

(Oct 14, 2005) - Unfortunately, this claim has made its rounds in other internet encyclopedias. Do a google search on "flannery o'connor" and "lesbian," and you will find page after page of the exact same claim suggesting that there are "hints" throughout her letters in Habit of Being. Well there aren't. There is just the one letter, nothing else.

The basis of the claim is this letter, dated September 30, 1961, which I will quote below, addressed to "A" - who is Betty Hester:

"We sure will enjoy that candy and you sure shouldn't have sent it to us. We'll also enjoy the rum, and I hope you'll come again before it is gone. Louise came down from upstairs Monday and said "Miss A. ain't slep in the bed." Regina asked her where she thought you had slept if you hadn't slept in the bed. She said she didn't know but you hadn't slep in the bed. She said maybe you slep on the flo. She said them sheets wasn't used. Regina has not convinced her yet that you slept in the bed. You will have to untangle this with her yourself the next time you come..." She then goes on to discuss literature and other things unrelated.

Nowhere in this exchange does Regina (Flannery's mother) scold Louise to "mind her own business." And frankly, one can think up a number of scenes that might have moved Flannery to write this. One is a sexual encounter. Ok. But one would have to put that in the context of Flannery's life, her beliefs, her unbending honesty, and what her friends have to say about her. All of these point against lesbianism. Perhaps she and Hester drank too much of that rum, and passed out in the kitchen. Perhaps Hester slept on the sofa, as she always did at her own apartment (she didn't sleep in a bed). Perhaps Hester made the bed so well that Louise couldn't believe it. Who knows?

In another letter, which I alluded to in the passages below, Flannery writes about her experience at Yaddo, saying:

"There were a good many parties at which everybody contributed something for the liquor. I went to one or two of these but always left before they began to break things. In such a place you have to expect them all to sleep around. This is not sin but Experience, and if you do not sleep with the opposite sex, it is assumed that you sleep with your own. This was in pre-beatnik days but I presume it is all about the same. At the breakfast table they talked about Seconol and barbituates and now maybe it's marujana. You survive in this atmosphere by minding your own business and by having plenty of your own business to mind; and by not being afraid to be different from the rest of them." (Letter to Cecil Dawkins, Dec 23, 1959)

To me, this shows a very self-assured young woman who knows what she is about, and quite plainly, she is not about sneaking around and engaging in "sin." If Flannery is anything, it is scathingly honest. I find the whole lesbian "debate" ridiculous because it makes Flannery O'Connor appear dishonest and hypocritical. Heaven only knows what latent feelings she may have held. But I see absolutely NOTHING in the letters published in Habit of Being, and I know that book inside and out. I am scandalized, not by lesbianism, but by the public "outing" of a person who isn't alive to defend herself against a false claim.

NinaB 18:53, 14 October 2005 (UTC)


I agree. The scenario could only be interpretted as a lesbian encounter by those who desperately wish to create sensationalist rubbish about an otherwise honest woman.

Caesar 20:03, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Oh dear, this is always going to come out of any incident involving any author. Everything can only be noted as speculation until he get hard facts. Which, something tells me, we don't see. Willie Stark 20:22, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] citation/date

What's the date of O'Connor's letter to her friend?

I would also like to know that... I haven't been able to find the letter.

---

In The Habit of Being Flannery remarks about her days at the Yaddo art colony, saying (paraphrase) "If you weren't sleeping around with members of the opposite sex, it's presumed you're sleeping with your own." It's offered in a critical manner, since the Yaddo members apparently had no consideration of a celibate lifestyle. I would be critical of presuming she was lesbian simply because it does not fit her standards of behavior, about which she was very exacting. And that's a real lame leap to say "it's possible" since it's possible to presume anything about anyone. What makes this claim unfortunate isn't the moral aspect of lesbianism. What makes it unfortunate is that it is most likely untrue.

[edit] Edit of "Collected Works" (The Library of America edition)

I think that the bibliograhical entries may be expanded slightly. For instance the Library of America edition cited above also includes "Stories and Occasional Prose" as well as a slice of Flannery O'Connor's "Letters" - 21 of which hadn't seen publication before this edition. I own a copy of this edition myself as I wrote a Master's Thesis on her in 1991 about her "narrative strategies" and her work on "The Partridge Festival" and related manuscripts held at the Flannery O'Connor Collection in Milledgeville, GA. (Peter Wind 18 October 2005)

i am cool

[edit] Race, et al.

"O'Connor's fiction became increasingly concerned with race as she neared the end of her life."

This is stated on the basis of -- what exactly? The fact that her final published story was a rewritten version of an earlier one?

In fact, there were three short stories that had yet to be collected in book form when O'Connor died: "Revelation," "Parker's Back," and "Judgment Day." In each, the main character is white. African-American characters figure slightly in the first, not at all in the second, and strongly in the last, but not enough to make so sweeping a comment about the developing trend in O'Connor's thinking as she neared her end. All of the stories reflect the same ideas she'd been exploring throughout her career, and, indeed, "Judgment Day," the single story that provides "proof" of her growing absorption in race, was, as already has been noted, a rewrite of the first story included in "The Complete Stories." How does that constitute a new and growing emphasis?

Moreover, O'Connor was at work on a novel at the time she died, "Why Do the Heathen Rage?" which, on the basis of the first chapter, also included in "The Complete Stories," had nothing to do with race. It's likewise folly to sweepingly liken O'Connor's work to that of William Faulkner, as the current article reads. In fact, their work has little in common stylistically, and, it could be argued, thematically as well. Faulkner was primarily a novelist, working on a vast scale, and overwhelmingly interested in the rise and fall of family dynasties, a subset of his interest in history overall. He was furthermore a modernist, experimenting with techniques borrowed from, among others, James Joyce. O’Connor, while a painstaking craftsperson, had little interest in stylistic innovations. She was first and foremost a short story writer, laboring on a small canvas and focused on individuals, not generations. She and Faulkner both wrote about the South and therefore each drew from a similar pool of characters, but to heap them into the same ill-defined category is like saying Norman Mailer has a great deal in common as a writer with Joseph Heller, both being Jewish natives of Brooklyn, when, in fact, there’s very little overlap. I would further venture, putting myself on a limb here, that comparisons between O’Connor and Faulkner reflect a distinct, “Northern” attitude toward the work of Southern writers, as does the article’s insistence on making race in O’Connor a notable theme. It’s as if her legacy is only as “legitimate” or as “relevant” as her willingness to grapple with the South’s history of slavery and hostility to civil rights, etc., however late it became a pressing concern.

I could further quibble with the word “ironic” as it’s used to describe O’Connor’s work in the article more than once. This, again, reflects what I regard as a particular bias, when I’m not convinced that O’Connor saw her endings as ironic at all. On the contrary, as her letters reflect, she expressed bemusement that her work was primarily read and misinterpreted by a secular audience with concerns that bore no relation whatsoever to hers.

As to all the quibbling over O’Connor’s sexuality, this, alas, is par for the course, from what I’ve seen on Wikipedia.

You make an excellent case, so be bold and go ahead and fix this stuff! At the least, statements like comparing her to Faulkner, or that she "brands each work with a disturbing and ironic conclusion" should be cited. These should be the referenced opinion of some WP:Reliable source, not of the person writing the WP article. RedSpruce 14:34, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Picture?

Where'd the picture go? There used to be a great image of Flannery O'Connor on this wikipedia page. Mc4932 17:03, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

I re-added the photo; hopefully it will stick this time. RedSpruce 18:23, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
Thanks much. Mc4932 21:18, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Prostitute

The page currently says that she worked as a prostitute between high school and college. I've never heard that before, nor did a preliminary internet search come up with any hits. Any citation on this? Tiger Khan (talk) 03:55, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

That appears to have been a vandalism edit. I've reverted it. Aleta Sing 05:16, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
Thanks. Tiger Khan (talk) 01:39, 10 May 2008 (UTC)