Oconnor the Southern Gothic in Thesis

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There is an almost pitiable desperation to challenge her sensibilities, indeed to teach her a lesson, that is overtly self-serving. And so we see, in the resolution of O'Connor's story, that Julian will suffer the consequences of his illusions. In no way does Julian's behavior absolve the deplorable belief system espoused by his mother and the great many of her ilk. However, it does demonstrate the smallness of all its subjects. The humorous moments leading to the climax -- in which Julian's mother and the portly black woman on the bus are revealed to be wearing the same hat about which such a fuss had been pitched in the story's opening sequence -- imply a sort of likeness between the women. The two are irreparably segregated from one another by a prejudice inbuilt to centuries of intolerance, mistreatment and mis-education. And for Julian's mother, racism is a natural worldview derived from a culture so much larger and older than she. A form of victimization in and of itself, though certainly not as lamentable as that inflicted upon the African-Americans, it is still quite destructive in the evolving context of the modern world.

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When his mother is somewhat deservedly and yet nonetheless devastatingly put in her place by the hostile portly passenger, Julian explodes with satisfied vengeance, telling her that "the old world is gone. The old manners are obsolete and your graciousness is not worth a damn.' He thought bitterly of the house that had been lost for him. 'You aren't who you think you are'" (21) The invocation of his lost inheritance, which would have included 200 black slaves, reveals the form of racism harbored within Julian.

The psychological exposition in O'Connor's work reaches its peak here, with a man obsessively preoccupied by a discontent with a life which he himself declares doomed for failure. This is the theme the emerges through all of O'Connor's works, which simultaneously celebrate and lament the death of the Old South. O'Connor approaches boldly the understanding that its hideous old ways have passed but also seems to view the south as a place yet in the throes of massive cultural and moral upheaval. To be sure, O'Connor's work forgives nobody.

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