Symbolism in "The Geranium" Key Essay

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As Old Dudley slips and falls down a couple steps, he reluctantly requires the aid of an African-American resident. In spite of his distaste for the African-American's demeanor, he must accept his help. Sadly, Old Dudley cannot accept the attitude of racial tolerance, as "the pain in his throat [is] all over his face now, leaking out his eyes." In liberal society, people need help from anyone in order to progress as an individual.

The tone of the story is stubborn reluctance. Old Dudley does not want to budge from sitting by the window, and is sick of his daughter's pressure to modernize and stay active. He does not want to lose the past social order, and regrets relying on African-Americans in the first place. For Old Dudley, the geranium is the faded image of the past, or at least an attempt to hold onto something normal.

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Its crash is O'Connor's allegory of condemnation, a social-Darwinist proposition that the weak and vulnerable aren't meant to survive. Moreover, Old Dudley's shock at seeing the fallen geranium is an elegy for that little bit of continuity in his life.

Ralph C. Wood's article compares this first story of O'Connor with her last, "Judgment Day," published posthumously. The latter is reportedly a re-working of "The Geranium," such that the last story of O'Connor comes full circle to the first. Wood analyzes the mature complexity of redemption of sins in "Judgment Day" and sees little of the "facile" "juvenilia" (58) of "The Geranium" in it. I see this early story as an interesting story of a man displaced in a new social environment. Even if the tropes of racism are dated, this little story can explore the universal theme of tragic stubbornness today.

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