Flannery was born on March 25, 1925 daughter of Edward F. and Regina L. O’Connor in Savannah Georgia. Her parents’ only child she grew up in their Catholic home in Savannah until she was twelve (Baumgaertner 5). At age twelve her family moved from Savannah to Milledgeville, the town where her mother’s father had been mayor for a number of years. In Milledgeville she attended Peabody High School and after graduation enrolled in the Georgia State College for Women (Whitt 6). These schools were both only a few blocks from Flannery’s childhood home in the antebellum Cline House (McKenzie 38). After graduating from Georgia State College for women in 1945 with an A.B., O’Connor furthered her education by attending the University of Iowa. Her first short story ‘The Geranium’ was published at age 21 while attending school in Iowa (Liukkonen).
After receiving her Master of Fine Arts in Literature from the University of Iowa, O’Connor moved her life to New York. While in New York, O’Connor was able to publish her first Novel, Wise Blood. The first four chapters appeared in various magazines in 1948 and 1949. In 1952 the entire book was published. In 1978, long after O’Connor’s death a screen
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In her stories she enjoyed making the violence much more real and personal. Her dependence on her mother is expressed through writing in, “The Life you Save may be your own,” “A Circle in the Fire,” and “Good Country People. One important influence on O’Connor’s writing is her southern upbringing. After experiencing agony the characters in her stories eventually find grace. Her stories, filled with violence and religion are influenced by her beliefs and surroundings. O’Connor would also be killed by this disease before turning 40 (Liukkonen). As noted by Liukkonen, “O’Connor’s second novel, The Violent Bear it Away (1960), had a related subject matter. This may be why many of her first time readers are shocked at her stories (Baumgaertner 13). Original Sin, judgment and revelation are highlighted throughout her stories. The differences between races were shown very clearly to O’Connor throughout her life; this may be why none of her stories involve a black person as the main character (Coles 4). O’Connor felt that it was not possible for a writer who was truly Christian to write anything and not in some way reveal God (Baumgaertner 47). ” All three of these stories show a single mother with a single daughter and the daughter having some form of disability. Wise Blood dealt with a distraught soldier returning from the army and creating a Church without Christ (Liukkonen). The best we can do is to assume that aspects of the author’s life have influenced her to write in such a manner.
Approximate Word count =
1170
Approximate Pages =
5 (250 words per page double spaced)
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