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RACE in FLANNERY O'connor Angela Gina O'donnell A View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Carolina Digital Repository RADICAL AMBIVALENCE: RACE IN FLANNERY O’CONNOR Angela Gina O’Donnell A dissertation submitted to the faculty of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of English and Comparative Literature Chapel Hill 2018 Approved by: Joseph Viscomi Richard Giannone Susan Srigley Joseph Flora Heidi Kim © 2018 Angela Alaimo O’Donnell ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ii ABSTRACT Angela Alaimo O’Donnell: Radical Ambivalence: Race in Flannery O’Connor (Under the Direction of Joseph Viscomi and Richard Giannone) This dissertation explores Flannery O’Connor’s complex attitude towards race in her fiction and correspondence. O’Connor lived and did most of her writing in her native Georgia during the tumultuous years of the Civil Rights movement. In one of her letters, O’Connor frankly expresses her double-mindedness regarding the social and political upheaval taking place in the U.S. with regard to race: “I hope that to be of two minds about some things is not to be neutral” (The Habit of Being 218). Examination of her correspondence, including unpublished letters, demonstrates that though O’Connor likely subscribed to the idea of racial equality, she was wary of desegregation, fearing the erosion of Southern culture and the disappearance of the code of manners that governed the relationships between African Americans and whites. This double-mindedness also manifests itself in O’Connor’s fiction. Drawing on Critical Race Theory and whiteness studies, Chapter One analyzes the ways in which O’Connor critiques the unjust racial practices of the South in her stories and other writings, yet unconsciously upholds them. Chapter Two explores O’Connor’s ambivalence with regard to contemporary politics, analyzes her use of derogatory language to describe African Americans, and assesses the inconsistencies in her discussion of race in the stories and letters in light of speech act-theory. Chapter Three explores the influence of theology and Catholicism on O’Connor’s attitudes, arguing that O’Connor’s radically theological vision and formation in a segregated Church shaped her ideas about race. Chapter Four takes its cue from Toni Morrison’s Playing in the Dark and demonstrates the complex role played by “Africanist” presence, represented by powerful black iii bodies, in the construction of white consciousness in O’Connor’s stories. Chapter Five explores the theme of thwarted communion between the races that preoccupies O’Connor in her fiction and correspondence. The study concludes that O’Connor’s race-haunted writing serves as the literary incarnation of her uncertainty about the great question of her era and of her urgent need, despite considerable reluctance, to address the fraught relationship between the races. iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS It is a commonplace that all biographers and literary critics stand on the shoulders of those who have come before them, and this is certainly true of my experience in writing this dissertation. A quick glance at my Works Cited page indicates the number of writers and scholars I have relied on in arriving at some understanding of Flannery O’Connor’s complex attitudes towards race. I am beholden to many people and for many different reasons—for insight, for information, and for inspiration. A list of the debts I owe would be long, but perhaps I can offer, at least, a brief version of that accounting. I’m grateful, first and foremost, to Sally Fitzgerald for her foundational work in editing O’Connor’s letters, which have enabled several generations of scholars to hear O’Connor tell the story of her life and relay her most private thoughts in her own inimitable voice. The Habit of Being has been my constant companion throughout this project, second only to my copy of O’Connor’s Collected Stories, as a text I have read from each day and relied upon to ground the study in O’Connor’s words. I’m also grateful for the work of the African American writers who have provided a new lens through which I was able to look at O’Connor’s work, rendering familiar material fresh, especially James Baldwin, Alice Walker, and Toni Morrison. Finally, I want to express my gratitude to the great Flannery O’Connor scholars who have taught me how to read her fiction, correspondence, and critical essays, including critics whose work I have recently discovered, such as Doreen Fowler and Susan Srigley, to those whose books I have been reading and rereading over my many years of teaching, studying, and writing about O’Connor, especially Ralph Wood and Richard Giannone. It is my good fortune to have two of those v scholars on my dissertation committee, and I am grateful for the opportunity to continue learning from them as we have labored together on this project. I would not have been able to complete this project without the assistance of the good people at the Special Collections at Georgia College and State University where O’Connor’s letters, manuscripts, and memorabilia are housed. My special thanks go to Nancy Davis-Bray, Associate Director for Special Collections, for her hours of attention while I was perusing the letters exchanged between Flannery O’Connor and Maryat Lee. In addition, I am especially grateful to have received an Ina Dillard Russell Library Research Grant to travel to Milledgeville to conduct my research. The grant helped defray my expenses but, more important, gave me confidence to go forward with what was then a new and somewhat daunting project. My thanks also go to the archivists at the Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, & Rare Book Library at Emory University, especially Kathy Shoemaker, for their assistance during my visit to view the letters exchanged between Flannery O’Connor and Elizabeth Hester and those exchanged between Flannery and Maryat Lee. The hospitality and expert guidance I received from them made for a productive as well as an enjoyable visit. With regard to the materials I examined at these archives, I am deeply grateful to Louise Florencourt, cousin to Flannery O’Connor, and Fr. Michael Garanzini, co-trustees of The Mary Flannery O’Connor Trust, for permission to quote from these previously unpublished letters. They have proven to be an invaluable resource in clarifying O’Connor’s complex attitudes about race. I’d like to express my deepest thanks to the members of my dissertation committee— Joseph Flora, Heidi Kim, and Susan Srigley—and especially to my co-directors, Joe Viscomi and Richard Giannone. Without Joe’s generous willingness to take on this unusual project written by vi an unusual student, and navigate the complex academic and bureaucratic system at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, this dissertation would not exist. The opportunity he has afforded me to finish my degree at this late date in my professional life is a gift of inestimable value. Because of Richard’s generous willingness to participate in this quixotic endeavor and his tireless contributions of time and expertise, this dissertation is a better and a richer study than it would be otherwise. I am blessed to call both men my mentors and friends. As I am blessed in my mentors, I am also blessed in my colleagues. I am very grateful to Christine Firer Hinze and Maria Terzulli, whom I am fortunate to work with at Fordham University’s Curran Center for American Catholic Studies, for their support and encouragement throughout this endeavor. Their willingness to carry an extra burden made it possible for me to complete this project. In this, as in many other ways, their generosity abounds. Finally, as ever, I am grateful to my husband, Brennan, for his friendship and support in this, as in so many projects. We discovered Flannery O’Connor together as undergraduates and fell in love with her work. As fellow academics and teachers, we have both read and taught O’Connor’s stories for decades. She has been the topic of conversation at so many of our family meals, she may as well have been there with us. His willingness to read and critique yet another of my projects devoted to her work is a sign of his great patience and love, for which I am most grateful of all. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ……………………………………………………....................x INTRODUCTION: TWO MINDS …………………………………………………………....1 The Unpublished Letters: A Fresh Resource ……………………………………….....5 The Critical Landscape ……………………………………………………………......8 Approach and Method ……………………………………………………………......11 CHAPTER 1: “WHITENESS VISIBLE”: CRITICAL RACE THEORY AND O’CONNOR’S FICTION……………………………….……...............16 Critical Dissent ……………………………………………………………………….18 Beyond Black and White ……………………………………………………………..20 Blinded and Sighted by Whiteness …………………………………………………...29 From “The Geranium” to “Judgement Day” …………………………………............30 “Whiteness Visible” ……………………………………………………………….....43 CHAPTER 2: RACE, POLITICS, AND THE DOUBLE MIND: FLANNERY’S CORRESPONDENCE VS. O’CONNOR’S FICTION ………..45 Early Depictions of Race: “The Barber,” “The Geranium,” “Wildcat,” and “The Coat”………………………………………………………………………..49 Later Thoughts on Race: O’Connor’s Correspondence ………………………............61 “The Habit of Bigotry” and “The Protean N-word”.………………………………….67 . Jack, Louise, Shot, and the “Locution of the South” …………………………………80 “Natural” vs. “Fictive” Discourse: “There Is a Crack in Everything” ………………..85 viii CHAPTER 3: THEOLOGY, RELIGION, AND RACE: CONSTANT CONVERSION AND THE BEGINNING
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