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On The Destruction Of Family's Values In Flannery O'Connor's Short Stories

Posted on:2006-10-17Degree:MasterType:Thesis
Country:ChinaCandidate:H HuangFull Text:PDF
GTID:2155360155456600Subject:English Language and Literature
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Flannery O'Connor (1925 - 1964) is regarded as the most important southern writer after William Faulkner. Suffering from the affliction, but having staunch perseverance and courageous spirit, she wrote two novels and thirty-one short stories. The posthumous The Complete Stories (1971) covering all her prominent thirty-one pieces, was awarded National Book in 1972. In readers' mind, she made much more achievements in short stories than in novels. Some short stories were regarded as masterpieces in the twentieth century of American literature. They had also caught critical attention and received critical evaluations from various aspects. Due to the special identity of O'Connor as a southern woman writer with Catholic religiosity, many commentators probed into the problems with her grotesque characters, absurd plots, Gothic horror, complex images and profound themes.The forming of O'Connor's Gothic stories is closely related to the special environment in the South of America. The defeat of the Civil War was a heavy blow not only on the social structure and economic development in the South, but also on the pride and confident attitude of the Southern. Suffering from frustration, failure, humiliation and poverty, the South highly valued the family relations and neighborhood. Firmly believing that value finds for expression in destruction, in her short stories, O'Connor presented the process of the fall of families from calmness, estrangement till destruction.In terms of incomplete membership, indifferent relationships and inconsistent attitudes, the familial estrangement in the family leads to an imminent disaster upon the seemingly calm life. A strong desire for care, communication and comprehension among family members becomes one of the motifs in her short stories, which annotates "the need of love" in religion. Then, giving in-depth analysis of the destruction of families, this...
Keywords/Search Tags:Flannery O'Connor, the destruction of family's values, the need of love, original sin, revelation and redemption
PDF Full Text Request
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