Analysis Of Flannery O Connor's Everything That Rises Must Converge

In the short story “Everything That Rises Must Converge”, by Flannery O’Connor, the author creates a divergent relationship between two primary characters: Julian and his mother. Through this relationship the author exhibits how Julian and his mother utilize racial discrimination in very different ways to satisfy their interests and to contribute to the subject of racism and segregation in the story. Julian, who thinks of himself as "enlightened," must define himself by a standard other than the one he has been measuring himself against, his mother. Julian is forced to address his mother’s prejudices on an integrated bus in hopes of teaching her a lesson about race relations and the modern world. In spite of the fact that he says to have free, intellectual perspectives about race, Julian is just as trivial and …show more content…
Black Americans, long treated as second-class citizens began to make themselves heard in America by demanding that they be given rights under the law. A turning point of the Civil Rights struggle came when a woman named Rosa Parks refused to move to the back of a bus, and sat down in the segregated front or "White section." This ultimately led to the supreme court ruling that segregation by race in public busses was unconstitutional. This fueled the power of the protest movement. This story was published in 1965, when segregation was in post-desegregation. Racism is not as anomalous as Julian wants the reader to believe, and he is more intensely focused on teaching his mother a lesson rather than doing something about the condition of the overall black population. The bus ride itself is a symbol of desegregation because it was one of the original sites of contested racial policies. Julian does not try to approach the matter of racism concerning his mom in a delicate, insightful, or non-accusatory