Bobby's English Studies Seminar Blog

     In "Parker's Back" by Flannery O'Connor, a theme of Parker's story is one of dissatisfaction. Parker seems to be dissatisfied with life and, according to Alfred Corn in his essay "An Encounter With O'Connor and 'Parker's Back,'" Parker finds a way to deal with his dissatisfaction: "And yet he is dissatisfied, troubled, and given to a peculiar addiction. He likes to acquire tattoos" (Corn 11). Here, we see that Corn believes Parker's dissatisfaction in life has made him give in to the addiction of getting tattoos. Nonetheless, we see numerous examples of Parker being dissatisfied in the text.      First, we see Parker is dissatisfied with life when discussing how he is satisfied with his tattoos for "about a month" before losing that interest: "A huge dissatisfaction would come over him and he would go off and find another tattooist and have another space filled up" (O'Connor 518). Later, O'C

    I n Jose Liste's essay "Strategies of Displacement in Flannery O'Connor's 'The Displaced Person,'" Liste defines displacement as the following: "Put simply, displacement consists in the substitution of one element by another, both of which are at least remotely related, usually through similarity or contiguity. Displacement is of the realm of metaphor and metonymy. lt thus partakes of the nature of figurality and, in a literary text, manifests itself through rhetorical devices and thematic contrasts" (Liste 1). In "The Displaced Person," we see numerous examples of displacement displayed throughout the story through many different literary forms such as irony.     In "The Displaced Person," readers get an idea of what a "displaced person" is in the following excerpt: "' It means they ain’t where they were born at and there’s nowhere for them to go—like if you was run out of here and wouldn’t nobody have

Dan Shor as Enoch Emery      Wise Blood is a story with many weird characters with their own unique personality traits. But a character who made me question what I was watching was Enoch Emery. Enoch seems like a kind-hearted, lonely 18-year-old with no real direction, but there are definitely things Enoch does that the typical 18-year-old doesn't do—especially stealing a "new Jesus" from a museum. According to Susan Pressley, "Most readers are disgusted as they read about Enoch's stealing the mummy from the museum, housing it in his self-made tabernacle, and ultimately delivering it to Hazel to serve as the "new Jesus" (80) that Hazel seeks. Critics focus on this act as more evidence that Enoch is a pagan who has found a God in his own mummified and unresurrected image" (Pressley 373). "Confused" would probably be a better word than "disgusted" but the disturbing actions make sense if Enoch has realized his own spirituality. Wh

  Robert Bradley Dr. Ruzich English Studies Seminar Capstone 23 January 2023 Blog Post 2: Judgment and Hope in O’Connor’s “Revelation”             In “Revelation” by Flannery O’Connor, the story’s main character Ruby Turpin judges everyone she has the chance to judge; however, when someone else judges her, at first, she doesn’t know how to handle that judgment. The end of the story offers readers a conclusion neatly tied up with a bow, as after judging all these people, Mrs. Turpin comes to the realization that all people, no matter their social status or appearance, make it into heaven. The vision that ends the story offers hope that people can change from their hateful ways. Throughout “Revelation,” Mrs. Turpin judges numerous people in the small hospital waiting room, especially the white trash lady and the child in the following excerpt: “Next to the ugly girl was the child, still in exactly the same position, and next to him was a thin leathery old woman in a cotton pr

Robert Bradley Dr. Ruzich English Studies Seminar Capstone 16 January 2023 Blog Post 2: O'Connor's "A Good Man Is Hard To Find" and Classism In “A Good Man Is Hard To Find” by Flannery O’Connor, classism is a highly evident and essential theme expressed through the story’s characters. At the beginning of O’Connor’s short story, O’Connor’s description of the grandmother’s clothing gives audiences an idea of the “old lady’s” class status with the following excerpt: “Her collars and cuffs were white organdy trimmed with lace and at her neckline she had pinned a purple spray of cloth violets containing a sachet. In case of an accident, anyone seeing her head on the highway would know at once that she was a lady” (O’Connor 131). The vivid description O’Connor gives of the grandmother’s clothes shows that the grandmother holds herself to a higher standard and shows she dresses to show others of that high standard. Also, the grandmother dressing nicely for the vacati