Redemption by offence? Literary terrorism in Flannery O’Connor.

• Flannery O'Connor (1925-64) is a weird phenomenon of the American South: not only an ardent Catholic within the Protestant Bible Belt, but also a transgressive author of Southern Gothic, widely surpassing Faulkner in grotesque motifs and violent plots. Offence is her main strategy, virtually terrorizing the reader with detailed descriptions of brutal acts, physical defects, and bizarre behaviour. Yet, O'Connor is one of the most highly ranked of American authors. In Sweden, however, she is almost unknown. My paper deals with the reception of literary terrorism and offence as a didactic strategy for religious ends. What presumptions lie behind such a seemingly counter-productive strategy? How is this strategy grasped in previous research? In processing these questions I concentrate on O'Connor's most well known and most studied short story, "A Good Man is Hard to Find," the title story of her first collection (1955). It depicts a terrorist act, committed by an escaped criminal, who kills a whole family of three generations for nothing, as he contends, but the pleasure of pure meanness. To this slaughter, the narrator-author keeps a neutral distance, just registering the events. As for the significance of the text, scholars pay attention to divergent passages and aspects, also reacting differently. My focus is on their ways of reading and the function of literary terrorism as a religious didactics in the American South of the 1950s.

Ämnesord

HUMANIORA  -- Filosofi, etik och religion -- Religionsvetenskap (hsv//swe)

HUMANITIES  -- Philosophy, Ethics and Religion -- Religious Studies (hsv//eng)

HUMANIORA  -- Språk och litteratur -- Litteraturstudier (hsv//swe)

HUMANITIES  -- Languages and Literature -- Specific Literatures (hsv//eng)

HUMANIORA  -- Språk och litteratur -- Litteraturvetenskap (hsv//swe)

HUMANITIES  -- Languages and Literature -- General Literary Studies (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

Bible

Flannery O’Connor

Literary strategy

Obduracy

Offense

Reader

Rgetoric

Terror

Publikations- och innehållstyp

ref (ämneskategori)

kap (ämneskategori)