| Flannery O'Connor is widely considered as the most important southern writer of America after William Faulkner. Although suffering from the affliction, she wrote, with perseverance and courageous spirit, two novels, thirty-one short stories and a large amount of correspondence and numerous essays which were collected and edited as The Habit of Being and Mystery and Manners. Her 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 of her short stories were regarded as masterpieces in the twentieth century American literature. They have 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 critics probed into her grotesque characters, absurd plots, Gothic horror, complex images and profound themes.This thesis aims to analyze the main stories of O'Connor under sociohistorical criticism in order to have a complete understanding of her ideological tendency and the social impact of her works. This essay is divided into six parts: an introduction, four chapters and a conclusion.The first chapter introduces sociohistorical criticism, including its literary views and judgment standards as well as the writing background of O'Connor which is essential to understand her. Sociohistorical criticism suggests that literature and history are inseparable and the nature of literature can be reflected in social life. Besides, evaluating literary works, sociohistorical criticism employs the judgment standards of authenticity, tendency, and social effects. What's more, O'Connor's unique life experience as a southerner and devout Catholic contributes a lot to her writing style and themes. Chapter Two analyzes the authenticity reflected in O'Connor's stories by examining the grotesque images that are freakish either physically or mentally. The freakish characters O'Connor created reflect authentically the living condition of modern society where humanity decayed and man suffered from loneliness, desperation and panic.Chapter Three analyzes O'Connor's tendency reflected in her stories. This chapter is divided into three parts: O'Connor's female consciousness, religious consciousness and racial consciousness. O'Connor denied the traditional female images and exposed the secular male world from the feminine perspective. Although she is not a typical feminist, she has a kind of female consciousness reflected in her concern about women's living state. Furthermore, O'Connor believes in original sin and she believes that people would be finally redeemed by God if they fear Him. She aims to stir people's religious consciousness and save the widespread moral decay. Moreover, O'Connor is not a racialist although she maybe has some kind of racial prejudice. She shows her deep sympathy to the black in her works and criticizes the superficial white who is strongly racialist.Chapter Four focuses on analyzing the social impact of O'Connor's short stories. O'Connor's stories reflect the real social life of modern people and meanwhile reveal her tendency. As a kind of reflection of social trend, her stories have an effect on people's thoughts and feelings.The final part is the conclusion. From the perspective of sociohistorical criticism, this paper makes it possible to have a better comprehension of O'Connor's short stories. |
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