A convergence of eagles: Flannery O'Connor and Walt Whitman

Flannery O'Connor's works show the influence of Walt Whitman. This dissertation will illustrate through comparing their texts---the use of intertextuality---that she, in fact, did rewrite some of his poetry and prose to accommodate her religious, literary, and moral convictions. The thesis of the dissertation is that Flannery O'Connor revised and rewrote several of Walt Whitman's works in order to provide the greatest gift she, as a Christian writer could: grace.;The analysis will cover the significant reviews of both O'Connor's and Whitman's works, and then examine the critical and public perceptions of those efforts. This study will also compare their backgrounds, belief structures, influences, and writings. It will demonstrate that O'Connor and Whitman share a textual life and that O'Connor borrowed from the texts of Whitman to expand upon them and to create vivid, memorable characters and stories of loss, salvation, and grace.;Whitman calls out to O'Connor. He wants her, and other writers to acknowledge him and his genius, but to also confuse and confound, to make them struggle to really know him. O'Connor recognizes the genius in Whitman, but balks at his apparent ego and blasphemy. She eventually comes to appreciate his writing enough to bestow the redemption upon him that she visits on her fictional characters. She does this by recreating his work using her Christian vision.