Prejudice In Flannery O Connor's Short Stories

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Flannery O'Connor demonstrates how having a false perception of reality leads to prejudice. Flannery O'Connor most frequently demonstrates this using the concept of racial prejudice in her short stories. This is shown due to the commonality protagonist refusing to accept social change. Many of Flannery O'Connor's stories deal with characters who are living in society after the abolishment of slavery. For example, Flannery O'Connors short story ¨Everything that Rises Must Converge¨ centers around the relationship between a mother and her son, Julian. Julians mother, Mrs. Chestny, has Julian stay with her on the bus due to integration of African-Americans on the buses. Mrs. Chestny has old-fashioned morals and is upset about the integration …show more content…
¨Revelation¨ contrasts the internal and external dialogue of Mrs. Turpin while she waits in a doctor's waiting room. Mrs. Turnpin believes she knows exactly how the world functions. She categorizes people into different social groups based on appearance. Mrs. Turpin spends her time looking at the people around her and placing them into categories. She labels each person near her into a category, putting herself on top. ¨On the bottom of the heap were most colored people … next to them … were white trash; then above them were the home-owners and above them the home-and-land owners¨ (O'Connor ¨Revelation¨ 445). With this mindset, Mrs. Turnpin places each person near her into a lower category. Throughout the story, she thanks God that she is not being ugly, white trash, or colored. Despite being a courteous southern lady outwardly, her internal dialogue is harsh. Her refusal to see society without labeling others led to her prejudice. Mrs. Turpin´s skewed perception of reality blinds her from looking past other people's appearances. Flannery O'Connor wrote the characters from ¨Everything that Rises Must Converge¨ and ¨Revelation¨ in a very similar manner. Both characters are blind to the world around them and their prejudice is caused by their warped perception of how society

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