Flannery O'Connor's Why Do the Heathen Rage? by Jessica Hooten Wilson

Author:Jessica Hooten Wilson [Wilson, Jessica Hooten]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Literature/Christianity;Flannery O’Connor—Criticism and interpretation;Literary criticism;LIT004020;LIT007000;FIC084030
Publisher: Baker Publishing Group
Published: 2023-11-13T00:00:00+00:00

The Revolting Conversion

I’ve visited Andalusia, O’Connor’s home, numerous times. From O’Connor’s front window two robust trees gesture with their lengthy arms toward the pond. The red dirt entry to the farm is also visible, and beyond it, the pond itself. Although glossed with algae, the pond looks inviting. You could walk between the cut of woods and across its waters. They used to sell vials of pond water in the store set up in the entryway for tourists, which made me laugh, as though these vials held holy water by which to remember one’s pilgrimage to an uncanonized saint’s former dwelling. The outside porch is screened in, a segue between the air-conditioned paradise and the infernal heat of the farm. Rather than the colonnades that adorn most antebellum-style plantation houses, this 1930s farmhouse greets visitors with white banisters lining the red brick porch.

Her room has been restored to how she left it: a flat twin bed like a monk might use, with her aluminum crutches leaning against the wardrobe and a Royal typewriter still and silent, waiting for inspiration. When O’Connor describes Walter’s room, it sounds similar to how her own room may have appeared:

Everything was mammoth and steady—the black antique highboy, the giant wardrobe, the old rolltop desk, each stood there like a Grandstaff ancestor who had taken this form for eternity. The desk was large and littered, almost a replica of the room itself, which was lined with books and papers, all in total disarray, piled evenly on the bed and under it. He would not allow anyone in to clean up. Silver fish darted from between papers and disappeared again. There was a dense network of spider webs connecting the desk to the nearest bookcase.1

When I edited the manuscript, witnessing her many rewrites of the opening lines, I imagined Flannery in this bedroom working, fingers perched above the keys of her typewriter and waiting for the clicking symphony to begin. If only she could get the opening sentence right. The pause is drawn out until the silence speaks to the author. “The day the woman descended upon them,” Flannery would type, “Walter was upstairs in his room, sitting at his typewriter, finishing a letter to her.”2

Flannery may have heard a peacock’s trill from the yard: a high vibrating sound followed by three or four caws in succession. Then a mower would start to hum, and the call would be drowned out by the mower’s modulating buzz. She would have withdrawn the paper from the typewriter to edit by hand. With fingers likely aching from sharp pangs at her joints, Flannery crosses out “woman” and writes “girl.” Unsatisfied, Flannery crosses out more words on the sheet: “The day the woman girl descended upon them, Walter was upstairs in his room, sitting at his typewriter, finishing a writing her a letter to her.” Still too many words, apparently. She would roll the paper through the typewriter again and return the carriage to the starting position.

The girl descended on them,

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