Flannery OConnors Religion of the Grotesque

This new assessment of a major southern writers work offers a revisionist view of her characters, who in the past twenty-five years of critical attention too often and too easily have been labeled grotesque.

OConnors stories and novels are usually considered mere dramatizations of her stated orthodox religious commitments. According to the predominant view, the typical OConnor work consists of a set of corrupt characters and an authoritative narrator who analyzes their theological errors. When redemption occurs, according to this view, it results from forces outside the character and against that characters will.

Although such a reading adequately describes a few works, it misunderstands OConnors general handling of narration and of characterization. Marshall Bruce Gentry proposes new positions on OConnors narration and on the role of the grotesque in her characterization. By investigating the nature of religious experience in her works, he concludes that OConnors primar