On Thursday, November 4, 2021 an event organized by the Boisi Center for Religion and American Public Life held a screening and panel discussion of the documentary entitled Flannery. The film, released in October of 2019, follows the life and works of the American novelist, short-story writer, and essayist: Flannery O’Connor.
O’Connor’s short life of 39 years was in no way short of success regarding her work as a novelist and short story writer completing two novels and thirty-two short stories. The Gothic style she employs in all her works draws on the “elements of fear, horror, death, and gloom intermingled with the flavor of the romantic characteristics of nature and high emotion” rooted in the landscape of the “Deep South.”
The manner in which she satirizes the behaviors and habits of the early to mid-twentieth century South illustrates the manner in which she “approaches the darkness with clarity and courage.” Just as she explored the inconsistencies and challenges within society, she similarly wrestled with her personal struggles with Disseminated Lupus Erythematosus, an autoimmune disease, that caused her to be removed from society for the majority of her life. The overarching and unifying cord in Flannery O’Connor’s work rests in the roots of her stories’ growth in Catholic themes.
The film’s intent, as stated by Fr. Mark Bosco S.J., a director of the production, was to explore four central themes of O’Connor’s life and work: “her role as a female writer, the role of race in her works, the influence of her disability on her writing, and her Catholicism.”
Throughout the course of the film the most foundational element of her life and works is her rich and profound Catholic faith. It was her view that “life is an action of God’s grace,” that allows her to approach the horror her works described through a lens filled with depth and breadth of meaning. It is “her ear” for the harsh realities of the South that allows her to subtly weave faith through dialogue that examines and satirizes the complexities of human nature.
The everyday details of sights and sounds that O’Connor describes highlights the stark contrast between the human and the divine. It is her ability to find the perfection hidden by the perversion that allures so many readers to the pages of her story.
Blood, the source of life, calls to mind the moment of Salvation, when “one soldier thrust his lance into His side, and immediately blood and water flowed out (Jn. 19:34).” Salvation was in no capacity a pretty or easy business, a fact of which O’Connor was keenly aware. It is the cruelty and gruesomeness flowing through her stories that allows her to more splendidly contrast it with the luminous beauty of those daily revelations of the divine.
The film’s exploration of the challenges and misfortunes that befell her life in conjunction with the backward state of society lends to it the ability to illustrate the depth of her own faith. She “considered faith and life as a joy and returned it with interest,” despite dire circumstances she has the amazing capacity to radiate joy and beauty.
Through the pains she illustrates Flannery O’Connor leaves us with the legacy and understanding of the constant potential for redemption, we only need to seek the humility and the courage to ask God for His Grace.
Featured image courtesy of Will via Flickr
Julia Danehy is a Sophomore in the William F. Connell School of Nursing a hop, skip, and a jump away from her home town of Fort Myers, FL. With the variety of her interests spanning about a million miles long, in her spare time she can be found exploring history, painting, spending time outdoors, whipping up some form of baked good, or reading anything to do with The Theology of the Body/philosophy in general.
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