In "Parker's Back" by Flannery O'Connor, the tattoos O.E. Parker receives are crucial to the reader's understanding of him. Furthermore, O'Connor suggests them as major symbols throughout Parker's life. Parker, the main character in this story, goes through the actions of life without really knowing who he is and why he is on the earth. "Parker gradually experiences religious conversion and, though tattooed all over the front of his body, is drawn to having a Byzantine tattoo of Christ placed on his back..., O'Connor was using unusual symbols to convey her sense of the mystery of God's redemptive power (Shackelford, p 1800)." Because of the tattoos, the reader is able to see O'Connor reveal the major characteristics in Parker's life and sympathize with this man as he searches for his identity and finds God.
             First of all, in order to understand O'Connor's short story, the reader must look into the background of her life. "Parker's Back" was the last story written by O'Connor before she died at the early age of thirty-nine from the disease of Lupus. Her writings all reflect from her religious background of Catholicism. "O'Connor wrote brilliant stories that brought the issue of religious faith into clear dramatic focus. She was a devout Roman Catholic living in predominantly Protestant rural Georgia. Her stories are far from pious; in fact, their mode is usually shocking and often bizarre. Yet the religious issues they raise are central to her work (Drake, online vertical file--------------------------------)." "Time and again in her stories, the spokesmen for a self-satisfied secularism run afoul of representatives of... the God-haunted protagonists...they play an indispensable role...they act as spiritual catalysts...(CLC, p276........................................)." "To even the casual reader it would appear that Miss O'Connor r...