International journal of Science Commerce and Humanities
Volume No 2 No 3
April 2014
Irony in O’Connor: Deconstructing the Aristocratic Southerner
Margaret E. Mahoney, Ph.D.
Professor
Department of English
Notre Dame of Maryland
4701 N. Charles St.
Baltimore, MD 21210 USA
Phone: 410-254-2163
Email: [email protected]
Abstract
Permeated by the Southern social code, O‟Connor addresses the social class and economic divisions of
Southern life and the relational position of men and women. Because of the South‟s long and difficult
involvement with slavery, social position rests primarily on one‟s racial group and only secondarily on one‟s
economic well-being. Louise Westling explains in Sacred Groves and Ravaged Gardens that notions of white
supremacy existed after the Civil War because Northern Democrats were persuaded “to allow the former
Confederate states self-determination and their own resolution of the „Negro question.‟ The result, of course,
was [continued] white supremacy and Jim Crow. . . . The Democratic party [the party in power in the South]
averted its gaze from the gradual disenfranchisement of blacks” (41). O‟Connor employs and changes the
prevalent understandings about Southern social class, embodied in the notions of white supremacy as she
presents a displaced Southern aristocracy, a struggling white middle class, and poor white trash. She further
subverts the notions of aristocracy with her failing plantation owners, middle class entrepreneurs, white trash
prophets, and “inferior” black characters who point up the failings of “superior” white characters. In
particular, two stories, “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” and “The Life You Save May Be Your Own,” reveal
O‟Connor‟s interest in, analysis of, and changing perspectives about Southern social class.
Permeated by the Southern social code, Flannery O‟Connor‟s works primarily address the social and
concomitant economic divisions of Southern life1 and the relational position of men and women. Because of
the South‟s long and difficult involvement with slavery, social position rests primarily on one‟s racial group and
only secondarily on one‟s economic well-being. Louise Westling explains in Sacred Groves and Ravaged
Gardens that notions of white supremacy existed after the Civil War because Northern Democrats were
persuaded “to allow the former Confederate states self-determination and their own resolution of the „Negro
question.‟ The result, of course, was [continued] white supremacy and Jim Crow. . . . The Democratic party
[the party in power in the South] averted its gaze from the gradual disenfranchisement of blacks” (41).
O‟Connor employs and changes the prevalent understandings about Southern social class embodied in the
notions of white supremacy as she presents a displaced Southern aristocracy, a struggling white middle class,
and shiftless black workers. She subverts the notions of aristocracy with her failing plantation owners, her
middle class entrepreneurs, her poor white prophets as agents of grace, and her “inferior” black people who
point up the failings of “superior” white people.
Concerning the “proper” relationship between men and women, O‟Connor also employs and changes
prevalent notions about man‟s superiority and woman‟s submission. Westling addresses the myths governing
the Southern code of behavior by explaining that, historically, aristocratic Southern white women were to be
paragons of virtue, obedient to their husbands, and, most importantly, racially pure (9); life on a pedestal
rendered them, as it did the majority of nineteenth-century American women, powerless and weak.2 On the
187
International journal of Science Commerce and Humanities
Volume No 2 No 3
April 2014
other hand, privileged white men, who authored and sustained the myths, were to be chivalrous, reverent, and
vigorous in their protection, care, and defense of women. Westling asserts, “What distinguishes the Southern
attitude from the wider, Western European chivalric heritage of reverence for women is the complicated
relationship of the Southern white woman to blacks” (21). Alice Walker addresses this aspect of the Southern
myth, while simultaneously praising O‟Connor‟s fiction:
It was for her description of Southern white women that I appreciated her
work at first, because when she set her pen to them, not a whiff of
magnolia hovered in the air . . . and yes, I could say yes, these white
folks without the magnolia and these black folks3 without melons and
superior racial patience, these are the Southerners I know. (104)
O‟Connor frequently focuses on Southern white women and their relationships with their husbands, children,
neighbors, and/or employees. Her voice attacks the domination/submission aspect of the Southern code
through her abrasive and aggressive mothers, and her weak or absent fathers and husbands. Two stories,4 “A
Good Man is Hard to Find,” and “The Life You Save May be Your Own,” reveal O‟Connor‟s interest in,
analysis of, and changing perspectives about Southern social class.
“A Good Man is Hard to Find” focuses on a Southern middle class family whose everyday concerns
become the backdrop for arbitrary and meaningless murder. Characteristically, in “A Good Man,” O‟Connor
establishes the family‟s social and economic status by multiplying and accruing details about the members of
the household, their intergenerational concerns, and incidental aspects of their present situation. The household
consists of Bailey‟s mother, “the Grandmother”; Bailey and his wife, “the children‟s mother”; their three
children, eight-year-old John Wesley, “a stocky child with glasses,” John Wesley‟s younger sister, June Star,
and their baby brother. O‟Connor presents the family as financially comfortable, enough to afford a modest
vacation, but immediately and humorously indicates their simple, provincial mindset. The Grandmother
suggests to Bailey and his wife that they should take the children “somewhere else” (other than Florida) for a
change so they would see different parts of the world and be abroad. They have never been to “East Tennessee”
(O‟Connor 117), indicating for the reader that “East Tennessee” is “another part of the world” and comparable
to traveling to Europe.
Next, the minor difficulties of intergenerational middle class living become obvious in the exchanges
between the Grandmother and her grandchildren about the family‟s destination. John Wesley candidly suggests
to his grandmother that she stay at home, while June Star declares “she [the Grandmother] wouldn‟t stay at
home to be queen for a day” (O‟Connor 117). Attempting to have the last word, the Grandmother replies, “Just
remember that the next time you want me to curl your hair” (O‟Connor 118). Not to be outdone, June Star
insists her hair is naturally curly. The conflict continues, even on the family‟s journey, with the Grandmother
and grandchildren disagreeing about the scenery: John Wesley characterizes Tennessee as “a hillbilly dumping
ground” and Georgia as “a lousy state too” (O‟Connor 119). The Grandmother turns these observations into
issues of respect because “in my time . . . children were more respectful of their native states and their parents
and everything else” (O‟Connor 119). With swift and deft insight, O‟Connor capitalizes on the notion of
“respect,” in order to define more clearly her perspective on Southern social and racial differences. Almost
immediately the Grandmother says, “Oh look at the cute little pickaninny” (O‟Connor 119). Apparently totally
unaware of the pejorative and condescending label she has used, the Grandmother knowingly replies to June
Star‟s observation that the child “didn‟t have any britches on,” as she asserts, “He probably didn‟t have any. . . .
Little niggers in the country don‟t have things like we do” (O‟Connor 119). By giving the Grandmother the
188
International journal of Science Commerce and Humanities
Volume No 2 No 3
April 2014
doubly ironic position of racial and economic superiority, O‟Connor has subtly foregrounded the ambivalent
relationship of Southern white women to Southern black people.
O‟Connor extends the issue of respect by contrasting the relationship of the Grandmother and the
children‟s mother. The Grandmother prides herself on being (and lives with the illusion that she is) a Southern
lady,5 evidenced as she travels with her white cotton gloves, blue straw sailor hat, and navy-blue dress with
organdy-trimmed collar and cuffs. O‟Connor confirms the illusion for the reader through the ironic narrator:
“anyone seeing her dead on the highway would know at once that she was a lady” (O‟Connor 118). By
contrast, Bailey‟s wife has no pretensions about being a Southern lady; the ironic narrator describes her as
dressed in slacks, having a broad, innocent cabbage-like face, and a green kerchief “that had two points on top
like rabbit‟s ears” (O‟Connor 117). By focusing on the Grandmother and the children‟s mother, O‟Connor
destroys the myth of the antebellum Southern lady.
Bailey‟s mildly antagonistic relationship with his mother and his nondescript relationship with his wife
also provide O‟Connor with opportunities to challenge the unequal, and paradoxically demeaning, pedestal
position of women. Bailey, having been directly addressed by his mother, responds indifferently to her
comments about the vacation, becomes appropriately furious with her about the family cat who disrupts their
travels, and ignores her when she chastises the children‟s ignorant and unmannerly behavior in the restaurant.
Bailey‟s wife, known only as “the children‟s mother,” is not even positioned for life on a pedestal. She simply
functions as a nameless caretaker for the children, a maid, and a useful companion on the journey.
In addition to subverting the Southern code of relationships, O‟Connor uses the Grandmother‟s nostalgic
remembrance of the “plantation” as the focal image that signals a change in the narrative from the humorous,
light-hearted first half to the gruesome, fast-paced second half. In the second part of the story, as the family
travels6 toward Florida, the Grandmother recalls “an old plantation that she had visited. . . . [with] six white
columns across the front and two little wooden trellis arbors” (O‟Connor 123). The more the Grandmother
reminisces, the more she wants to see the old plantation. She insists that she knows “exactly which road to turn
off to get to it” (O‟Connor 123) and elicits the children‟s assistance by raising their curiosity about “a secret
panel” and “hidden family silver.” The plantation image becomes larger than life both for the children and the
Grandmother, who does not know “the exact road” and has fabricated the hidden panel and the family silver
stories. Her nostalgic remembrance for the past glory of plantation life overrides her concern for truth and
reality. The obstreperous children, egged on by the Grandmother, create such havoc that Bailey accedes to their
demands and angrily turns off the main road. The hidden cat emerges, causing Bailey to swerve, and the car
accidentally overturns into a gulch, stranding the family. The Misfit7 and his accomplices, who are the escaped
murderers alluded to in the opening narrative section, appear and kill the family members, leaving the
Grandmother as the last victim to be shot. In the final scene, O‟Connor dramatizes the ironic inversion of the
Southern myth: the gentleman defender and protector of womankind has become the Misfit murderer, and the
genteel Southern woman has been reduced to a “talker” who would have been a good woman, says the Misfit,
“‟if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life‟” (133). Through her perspective,
O‟Connor has framed and permeated the story with allusions to the Southern code of social behavior and
memories of plantation life in order to challenge the myth of the aristocratic Southerner.
A more insightful and acerbic parody of the genteel Southern woman and her chivalrous male
counterpart occurs in “The Life You Save May Be Your Own.” In this story, O‟Connor criticizes both the
fabricated roles of men and women and the relationship of mother and child. To challenge the male role of
protector, defender, and caretaker, O‟Connor uses Tom Shiftlet, a one-armed, gaunt vagabond,8 whose only
interest in Mrs. Lucynell Crater and her daughter is the family‟s old, broken-down Ford. Maneuvering into
Mrs. Crater‟s good graces by doing garden work and carpentry on her run-down property, Shiftlet even teaches9
189
International journal of Science Commerce and Humanities
Volume No 2 No 3
April 2014
Lucynell, “who was completely deaf and had never said a word in her life, to say the word „bird‟” (O‟Connor
150). Recognizing that he can have the car for his own only if Lucynell comes with the bargain, Shiftlet
marries her. Taking the car, Mrs. Crater‟s offer of $17.50 toward a honeymoon weekend, and Lucynell, Shiftlet
drives 100 miles to “an aluminum-painted eating place called the Hot Spot” (O‟Connor 154) where he quickly
abandons the deaf and dumb girl. The chivalric code of protection, defense, and caretaking has degenerated
into manipulation, abuse, and desertion. O‟Connor has effectively destroyed the Southern males‟ “heritage of
reverence for women” (Westling 21).
Another aspect of O‟Connor‟s voice in this story is concerned with the mother-child relationship.10
When Louise Westling addresses the nostalgic, fancifully remembered role of children and their place in
antebellum Southern society, she portrays them as being attended to and cared for, not only by their mothers,
but also by their grandmothers, maiden aunts, and cousins. These maternal guardians would tell the children
elaborate tales of gallant Southern soldiers, lovely young brides, and missionary lovers who were dying of
malaria in Africa. The children were dressed up . . . [and taken] to have cambric tea with invalid widows who
wore lace collars and complicated black dresses, or carted out to visit Cousin Jane‟s farm where she lived alone
in the Victorian splendor of echoing rooms with polished black floors, antiques, and her rare doll collection.
(Westling 43) Thus children were lovingly and properly cared for by the female members of the antebellum
society.
Familiar with the heritage/myth of loving mother/child relationship, O‟Connor presents Mrs. Lucynell
Crater and her thirty-year old handicapped daughter. Lucynell, far from the solicitous care of multiple cousins,
aunts, and grandmothers, has been watched over only by her inept mother who has taught her to perform some
menial household chores.
When the one-armed Shiftlet appears at the Crater household, Mrs. Crater
recognizes the opportunity to shed her burdensome daughter; the ironic narrator observes, “she was ravenous
for a son-in-law” (O‟Connor 150). Mrs. Crater insists to Shiftlet that Lucynell can “sweep the floor, cook,
wash, feed the chickens, and hoe” (O‟Connor 149), when in reality Lucynell is most accomplished at “sitting
cross-legged in her chair, holding both feet in her hands” (O‟Connor 151). In the bargaining scene over
Lucynell, Shiftlet has the upper hand because he “already knew what was on [Mrs. Crater‟s] mind” (O‟Connor
151). Not only does she want a son-in-law, but she also wants a live-in caretaker for Lucynell and a domestic
hand for the farm work. She thinks she can entice Shiftlet with the ludicrous prospect of a permanent place to
live with the “sweetest girl in the world” (O‟Connor 151). Shiftlet shrewdly recognizes the bargaining and
manipulation; he enters into the dialogue having in mind the prospect of being a car owner and with no
intentions of being a husband or farmhand. When Mrs. Crater eventually bargains away her daughter for a car
and the magnificent sum of $17.50, O‟Connor has not only annihilated the myth of a loving mother/daughter
relationship, but she has also surrounded the pathetic and innocent Lucynell with images of suffering and
martyrdom reminiscent of Judas‟ sale of Jesus for thirty pieces of silver.
Using “A Good Man is Hard to Find” and “The Life You Save May Be Your Own,” O‟Connor has
presented basic aspects of the genteel Southerner myth. Each narrative‟s impact hinges directly on the reader‟s
understanding and acceptance of this myth; O‟Connor‟s success occurs through her persuasive moral stance,
which illustrates the hypocrisy underlying the myth and which destroys the false notions that ultimately render
women inferior and powerless.
190
International journal of Science Commerce and Humanities
Volume No 2 No 3
April 2014
NOTES
1
C. Hugh Holman describes O‟Connor‟s South—its geography, groups of people, and famous writers
who have chronicled its past and present. He views O‟Connor‟s South as “special . . . remote from the mossdraped melancholy great oaks and the stable social order of the Atlantic seaboard and equally distant from the
tropical lushness and faculty of the gulf-coast Deep South. She knew and wrote of piedmont Georgia and
eastern Tennessee—a rolling, sparsely wooded land where both the spring freshlets and the ravishing plow
pierce its surface to leave gaping wounds of dark, red clay” (74-75).
2
Westling‟s scholarly work on Southern women writers, Sacred Groves and Ravaged Gardens, begins
with a chapter on “The Blight of Southern Womanhood.” Westling explains the paradox and difficulties of
aristocratic white women, who were supposedly of the upper class, and thereby part of the oppressing group for
black people, but, on the other hand, were part of the oppressed because of their husbands, who frequently
fathered children with black women slaves. The “aristocratic” wives were simply forced to stand by and accept
their husbands‟ behavior.
3
Alice Walker suggests in “Beyond the Peacock” that O‟Connor‟s contribution to Southern writing is
that “she destroyed the last vestiges of sentimentality in Southern writing; she caused white women to look
ridiculous on their pedestals, and she approached her black characters—as a mature artist—with unusual
humility and restraint” (106).
4
All references to Flannery O‟Connor‟s stories are from The Collected Works, Farrar, Straus, and
Giroux.
5
Margaret Whitt in “Flannery O‟Connor‟s Ladies” discusses the “southern manner” of O‟Connor‟s
ladies that she ridicules. Whitt also suggests that O‟Connor‟s women suffer from matrophobia and gives
several examples to substantiate her thesis.
6
Gilbert Muller suggests that “A Good Man is Hard to Find” is one of O‟Connor‟s stories in which she
uses a journey to express grotesque action; the characters engage in psychological and spiritual quests as they
travel.
7
James Farnham argues that the Misfit is an example of someone influenced by Christ‟s passion, but
who has perverted the grace, while Nisly suggests that the Misfit is a passionless murderer.
8
Irving Malin suggests (as does Muller) that journeys are one of O‟Connor‟s most familiar images, and
that Shiftlet is among those characters who is transient and always traveling.
9
John May remarks that O‟Connor‟s fiction stresses the idea that language is an event that has meaning,
power, and promise. In “The Life you Save” Lucynell‟s language disturbs Shiftlet, but he flees rather than
respond to her words.
10
Lisa Babinec in “Cyclical Patterns of Domination and Manipulation in Flannery O‟Connor‟s Mother
Daughter Relationships,” focuses on the “effect that the absent father has on the development of the masculine
work ethic among mothers in O‟Connor‟s fiction” (24). She argues that one primary effect of the absent father
“manifests itself in a severly strained relationship between mother and daughter” (25).
191
International journal of Science Commerce and Humanities
Volume No 2 No 3
April 2014
WORKS CITED
Babinec, Lisa. “Cyclical Patterns of Domination and Manipulation in Flannery O‟Connor‟s Mother-Daughter
Relationships.” Flannery O‟Connor Bulletin 19 (1990): 9-29.
Farnham, James. “The Grotesque in Flannery O‟Connor.” America 13 May 1961: 277-281.
Holman, C. Hugh. “Her Rue with a Difference.” The Added Dimension: The Art and Mind of Flannery
O‟Connor. Eds. Melvin Friedman and Lewis Lawson. New York; Fordham UP, 1966. 73-87.
Malin, Irving. New American Gothic. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1962.
May, John. The Pruning Word: The Parables of Flannery O‟Connor. Notre Dame: U of Notre Dame P, 1976.
Muller, Gilbert. Nightmares and Visions: Flannery O‟Connor and the Catholic Grotesque.
Georgia P, 1972.
Athens: U of
Nisly, Paul. “The Mystery of Evil: Flannery O‟Connor‟s Gothic Power.” Flannery O‟Connor Bulletin 11
(1982): 25-35.
O‟Connor, Flannery. The Complete Stories. New York: Farrar, 1972.
Walker, Alice. “Beyond the Peacock: The Reconstruction of Flannery O‟Connor.” Ms Dec. 1975: 77-79, 102106.
Westling, Louise. Sacred Groves and Ravaged Gardens. Athens: U of Georgia P, 1985.
Whitt, Margaret. “Flannery O‟Connor‟s Ladies.” Flannery O‟Connor Bulletin 15 (1986): 42-50.
192