erlay of her stories, lies a obvious meaning. The violence, at times, seems as if shewere using it to exaggerate her point. In other words, she was trying to shock peopleinto awareness to see a larger, more important truth. Yet at other times the violencecomes as a complete surprise, almost senseless, unnecessary. O Connors writing styleis unaffected like many of the Southern towns, characters and townspeople she writesabout. However, her style delivers a pointed sword in the readers conscious, as aresult , making you look closer at what she is trying to say. To me, its a strangemixture for a devout Catholic to write about such oddly gross and violent characterswho appear to have no conscience and no spiritual light to guide their action. Flannery must have been lonely, because she rarely had visitors and had very fewfriends. Her debilitating illness was probably a major part of her separating from othersto lead such an isolated life. Possibly embarrassed and humble , not wanting sympathybecause of her disease , she kept others away. One can see why she wrote about thehandicapped , the physically or mentally impaired. Most likely it was a theme thatpersonally related to her. I believe that all this make it obvious that Flannery OConners life greatly influenced her work we see examples of this several times inGood Country People Although O Connor was a devout Catholic and claimed her work was religiousin nature, her work can be interpreted in many ways. Many critics have only seen herwork in a religious way and I think that is limiting . Regardless of your religious pointof view O Connors work is worth investigating to make your own conlusions....
