The Lame Shall Enter First “The Lame Shall Enter First” is a short story by Flannery O’Connor, and it’s a tragic story in which the selfishness of a father (Sheppard) causes really bad consequences in his hurting son (Norton). It was published in 1965 in her short story collection Everything That Rises Must Converge. O 'Connor finished the collection during her final battle with lupus. She died in 1964, just before her final book was published. “A devout Roman Catholic, O 'Connor often used religious themes in her work” (Hughes). The main character Sheppard is an atheist (a person who denies or disbelieves the existence of a supreme being or beings), and he lost his wife just a year before the story takes place, leaving him just with his young
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This is a very debatable topic which makes it really hard to come up with a conclusion, but based on the story “The Lame Shall Enter First” it is a topic of high importance to the themes of the story. Sheppard being a non-believer (atheist) does not give his son Norton the benefit of holding his grief on faith. Sheppard is constantly telling his only child to put up with the facts and that he has to accept that his mother is gone and does not exist anymore. Norton constantly asks where his mother is, and Sheppard just shouts at him and tells him that he is never going to see her again. On the other hand, we have Rufus who is a strong believer in The Bible and faith. Rufus, against Sheppard’s wishes, tells Norton that his mother is in heaven, and that heaven is a place above earth and above all skies. Rufus tells Norton that the only way for him to encounter his mother again is if he dies while he is still a child, uncorrupted. “And as for your little ones, who you said would become a prey, and your children, who today have no knowledge of good or evil, they shall go in there. And to them I will give it, and they shall possess it” (English Standard Bible, Deuteronomy. 1. …show more content…
Evil is a theme also contrasted in the story. Rufus constantly says that he is evil, and Sheppard in his innocence tries to help him, tries desperately to rearrange Rufus’s thoughts and help him fall back into the path of righteousness. Sheppard means good, but his thought of extreme reasoning and science takes him to an extreme where even he becomes selfish. On the other hand, Rufus, being a very smart human being, rejects all reasoning and strongly believes in the idea of a higher God, who saves and loves. Sheppard refuses to believe in the existence of a higher power, and he says that the Bible is something to hide behind and exists for people who are afraid of living their lives by themselves and of standing alone for
This is a very debatable topic which makes it really hard to come up with a conclusion, but based on the story “The Lame Shall Enter First” it is a topic of high importance to the themes of the story. Sheppard being a non-believer (atheist) does not give his son Norton the benefit of holding his grief on faith. Sheppard is constantly telling his only child to put up with the facts and that he has to accept that his mother is gone and does not exist anymore. Norton constantly asks where his mother is, and Sheppard just shouts at him and tells him that he is never going to see her again. On the other hand, we have Rufus who is a strong believer in The Bible and faith. Rufus, against Sheppard’s wishes, tells Norton that his mother is in heaven, and that heaven is a place above earth and above all skies. Rufus tells Norton that the only way for him to encounter his mother again is if he dies while he is still a child, uncorrupted. “And as for your little ones, who you said would become a prey, and your children, who today have no knowledge of good or evil, they shall go in there. And to them I will give it, and they shall possess it” (English Standard Bible, Deuteronomy. 1. …show more content…
Evil is a theme also contrasted in the story. Rufus constantly says that he is evil, and Sheppard in his innocence tries to help him, tries desperately to rearrange Rufus’s thoughts and help him fall back into the path of righteousness. Sheppard means good, but his thought of extreme reasoning and science takes him to an extreme where even he becomes selfish. On the other hand, Rufus, being a very smart human being, rejects all reasoning and strongly believes in the idea of a higher God, who saves and loves. Sheppard refuses to believe in the existence of a higher power, and he says that the Bible is something to hide behind and exists for people who are afraid of living their lives by themselves and of standing alone for