Kerry On

From Mary Hathaway on Flannery's Symbolism Like "The Comforts of Home" is a direct reference to St. Thomas driving out the prostitute his brothers sent to him to try to get him to quit his vocation. It makes everything that much funnier in her stories. I suppose there are quite a few people who read Flannery and can't quite grasp it all because they're like the widow in "The Displaced Person," watching the last rites being given and are on the outside looking in. She bowls me over every time. I would also add that every widow should also be considered an image (very imperfect of course) of the Blessed Mother as much as it is a reference to Regina O'Connor. The Widow McIntyre is the Widow Carpenter, a title Mary the Mother of Jesus rarely is given, but yet that is exactly who she would have been referenced as in her life on earth.

  The Brilliant Bafflement of Wildcat   Sr. Margaret Kerry, fsp "Our experience of the grotesque should result in bafflement" (Wilson Yates). Wildcat is imaginative, faith-filled, and baffling, a genuine Flannery O'Conner come to screen. Robert Giroux, friend, and publisher described his relationship with Flannery as "strange and trusting" while he said her dreary chair at the University of Iowa glowed ( The Complete Stories Flannery O'Conner ). Her teacher Caroline Gordon described O'Conner's writing as "baffling the reviewers." Giroux confirmed "They all recognized her power but missed her point." One of the points to get to right away is Flannery’s use of descriptives that many consider racist. DW, who keeps the weblog Becoming Flame wrote, Flannery “writes about racism, prejudice, and white privilege in almost every story, exposing them for what they are and showing how firmly and pervasively and subtly they lurk in ou