MARY FLANNERY OCONNOR :: essays research papers

MARY FLANNERY O'CONNOR Flannery O'Connor was a Southern writer especially noted for 32 incisive short stories before a tragic death at the age of 39. Mary Flannery O'Connor was born March 25, 1925 in Savannah, Georgia, the only child of Francis and Regina O'Connor. The family lived on Lafayette Square at 207 East Charlton Street in Savannah, adjacent to the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist, where Mary Flannery was baptized into the Catholic faith on April 12, 1925. She attended school at St. Vincent's grammar school, taught by the Sisters of Mercy from Ireland. She received national media attention at the age of five when she trained a chicken to walk backwards. The summers were often spent visiting her mother's family, the Clines, in Milledgeville, Georgia. Because of financial difficulties with his real estate business, her father, who had developed health problems as well, took a federal job in Atlanta in 1938, when Mary Flannery was 13. However, settling in Atlanta proved difficult for the family, and Mary Flannery and her mother Regina Cline O'Connor moved to the mother's family home in Milledgeville in fall of the same year. Her father's health continued to decline, and it was not until shortly before his death on February 1, 1941 that he was diagnosed with systemic lupus erythematosis, the same disease that would claim Flannery. Following graduation from Peabody High School and the Georgia State College for Women in Milledgeville, she began attending the State University of Iowa, where she began her writing career and introduced herself as Flannery. While in Iowa City, she attended Mass daily at St. Mary's Church; throughout her life, she remained true to her Catholic faith. During graduate school, her short story The Geranium was accepted for publication by Accent in 1946. She submitted her thesis in 1947, entitled The Geranium: a Collection of [Six] Short Stories, and received her Masters of Fine Arts degree on June 1, 1947. Flannery O'Connor's writings offer deep insight on the fallen nature of mankind through original sin, but redemption through the grace of Jesus Christ. Flannery O'Connor's first novel, Wise Blood, published in 1952, achieved only a modest reception. However, she received critical acclaim and popular success with the 1955 publication of A Good Man is Hard to Find, a collection of 10 short stories, the first story bearing the same name. A second novel, The Violent Bear it Away, was published in 1960.