THE ISOLATED
BEING AND THE MIRAGE OF LOVE IN
FLANNERY
O’CONNOR’S FICTION
Dr. A. Sreedevi and Dr. A.
Venkanna
Flannery O’
Connor says that man in modern times suffers from the absence of love. Her religious view of life enabled her to
comprehend the true state of man in society.
Her characters are deformed mad men and women, thieves, misfits, idiot
children, false prophets and murderers.
O’Connor’s
characters have false prestige and set themselves not only above other human
beings but above God. Love and
compassion are very much absent from their hearts. With such a kind of fragmented vision, these modern people meet
accidents, very violent and grotesque, leading to realisation of the ultimate reality- a reality that is full
of love and understanding that makes them return to normality. O’ Connor’s idea is that the possibility of
love is the most essential element for man to live a life full in itself.
The reason
for the absence of love is described in some of O’ Connor’s tales. According to her, one of the reasons for the
absence of love is modernisation of the society. The threat of
industrialisation, the suffering of the consequences of the two world
wars had left O’Connor notice man
losing control over nature which in turn effected his consciousness. He becomes a psychic freak, as the pain
increases in him, in the longing for love.
The modern
family in O’Connor’s fiction is a fragmented one. The family which is self-contained promises no security in an
insecure world. Love between parents
and children, between wife and husband or between other family members is
always absent. They always eliminate
themselves from God’s love and also do not realise the importance of love that
should be given and taken. Love, the most important human characteristic that
can be responsible for a happy family life is missing. Yet, a careful study reveals the fact that
the family members have an unconscious urge for love. O’Connor hints at this desire for love, describes the causes for
the absence of love and illustrates the bad consequences. O’Connor’s themes are not only regional or
American but universal too. She gives
expression to the voice of all the lonely and alienated people of the world.
“The River”
is the best known of O’Connor’s story in which she presents love as central
theme. The child Bevel moves away from
a profane world where he can’t get love, to a world he thinks, where he can
find the ultimate solution. He is
forgotten and not taken care of by his parents. People around him tease him and threaten him. He lives in a world of total disaster. Mrs. Cronin, his baby sitter, takes care of
him but only as an employee.
Once she
reads him a story “The life of Jesus Christ for Readers under Twelve”. The child learns that a carpenter named
Jesus Christ made him. He understands
that Christ drives “a crowd of pigs out of men”. From this moment on, the child
understands the difference between love and hatred that is being given to
him. Now he can distinguish between
good and bad in human beings and this knowledge lets him go ahead searching for
love. He finds it miraculously when he
arrives at the river with Mrs. Cronin for the baptism. At the river, the child is completely in the
milieu of sacred love.
When he is
lifted on to the preacher’s shoulders, he becomes the center of attention. At this point of the story, O’ Connor
presents Bevel’s yearning for love. He
has already changed his name to Bevel like the preacher’s, ‘my name is Be
Vuuul’, he said it in loud deep voice and let the tip of his tongue slide
across his mouth”. (Complete stories
164). The child’s mind now becomes
pure and un-complex. He forgets the
loneliness at home and is refreshed at the words of the preacher. He responds to the preacher’s invitation
whole-heartedly, “… to be washed in the river of suffering and to go by the
deep river of life,”…in the River of love.” “..You can lay your pain in that
River and get rid of it…” (Complete Stories 159).
Bevel feels
the comfort that settles in him with the compassionate words of the
preacher. He is not ready to go home
now but “to go under the river.” The
author offers spiritual solution for the child, who feels that instead of
living in a world that gives no assurance of compassion and security to him, it
is better to seek it at higher level, with the divine. O’ Connor says that “Bevel’s peculiar desire
to find the kingdom of Christ” represents the working of grace for him”.
Bevel’s
worries are over when he comes to the conclusion that “going under the river”
frees him from all his worldly problems. “Yes”, the child said, and thought, “I
won’t go back to the apartment…I’ll go under the river”. (Complete Stories
165).
The boy’s
suffering is caused by his parents who represent extreme secularism. They do not realise either the physical or
the psychological needs of the child. O’ Connor’s characters vainly search for
human love but succeed in getting the divine love. Next day morning when the parents are still asleep with hangover,
the child takes some money for the carfare and moves out of the home. He walks towards the river and is eager to
go into it for he is impatient “to find” the divine world which is reassuring. Once in the water he does not wait, “…he
didn’t mean to waste any more thing; He puts his head under the water at once
and pushed forward…” (Complete stories 160). The child drowns himself to find love. Devoid of love, the child’s life in this world is painful. He seeks it in another world by dying. Thus, the research for love continues beyond
physical life.
In this story
O’ Connor conveys a viewpoint that is complex and humane. She stresses the idea that “love is the most
special brand of compassion that the human needs. She realises this need.
She notices that his world is grotesque without a transcendent context
as she says, “I have found that my subject in fiction is the action of grace in
territory largely held by the devil”.
She thinks
that the world has become less hostile to human sentiments and religious
sensibilities. As she says, “I keep
thinking more and more about the presentation of love and charity…” O’ Connor’s stories are remarkable for their
quality of love and grace. She is
concerned with human life in the modern world.
O’ Connor’s
fiction is gothic and violent, only superficially, the depth of her fiction is
precisely to highlight the action of love.
In her fiction, the balance of human and divine love is very important.
All her characters recognise their need for love. By portraying the redemptive process, the author makes more
explicit the effects of love. More
apparently, she gives us a sense of God working through human agency. She explores only one idea, that love is a
manifestation of divine in human beings.