Flannery O Connor's Grotesque

Over the years, Flannery O’Connor has produced piece after piece of inspiring literature. Her work has been commemorated on several occasions in addition to her winning awards such as The National Book Award, a grant from the National Institute of Arts and Letters, a grant from the Ford Foundation, a fellowship from the Kenyon Review, and finally several O. Henry awards. Clearly, there was something about O’Connor’s work that caught people’s attention. While there are many aspects of O’Connor’s work that are worthy of recognition, the most fascinating characteristic is her interest, and ever present examination, of “The Grotesque”. In every piece O’Connor produced, there are features of the grotesque in one way or another. While these plot …show more content…
Both O’Connor and Hawthorne were very religious. O’Connor, as it has been stated, was a Roman Catholic. Hawthorne on the other hand was a puritan. Although there is a difference in what faith each individually practiced, both religions involved the act of sin. Additionally both writers included this concept in their writing. For instance, in “The Scarlet Letter” Hawthorne teaches his readers a moral lesson about sin and guilt. This story follows a young woman, Hester Prim, who is found by her husband with an illegitimate child. She is then forced to where a red “A” on her clothing, for adulteress, as punishment for her affair. However, in the end she is forgiven and seen as a compassionate person, while her husband ends up being disgraced by his monomaniac pursuit of revenge against Hester. Hawthorne used his writing to show moral corruptness but also how to avoid it or redeem oneself from being morally corrupt. As a reader of Hawthorne, this may have been where O’Connor’s interest in the subject stemmed from. However, O’Connor uses the grotesque to teach her moral …show more content…
Much like O’Connor, Sherwood Anderson incorporated aspects of the grotesque into his characters and situations. Sherwood Anderson is the author that shares the most commonality with O’Connor. He used the grotesque in his characters or in their circumstances, and these grotesques were used to convey some kind of truth or innocence. This is apparent in Anderson’s short story “Hands”, featured in his greater collection, “Winesberg Ohio”. The main character, Wing Biddlebaum, is viewed as grotesque because he is accused of molesting young boys. Although it is not clearly stated whether he did in fact commit these atrocities, it seems more evident that Biddlebaum is innocent. Yet, despite this is forever hides his hands, as they seem to be the culprit when town’s people tell him to keep his hands away from their children. Although Anderson doesn’t incorporate any religious aspects in his writing, there are some profound similarities between his writing and Flannery O’Connor’s when it comes to an examination of the