O'Connor's "Parker's Back" and Dissatisfaction

  

 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'Connor's narrator says the following regarding Parker's dissatisfaction with life and how tattoos temporarily fill that void: "As the space on the front of him for tattoos decreased, his dissatisfaction grew and became general. " (O'Connor 518). The reader may find it interesting that every time Parker gets a tattoo he is happy yet dissatisfied, which shows that Parker may always be dissatisfied especially because he continues to fill his body with tattoos but not with satisfaction.
    Moreover, we see that, later in the story, Parker becomes consumed with his own dissatisfaction to the point where an old trick of his begins to no longer work: "Dissatisfaction began to grow so great in Parker that there was no containing it outside of a tattoo" (O'Connor 523). Parker beginning to lose the ability to control his dissatisfaction through his hobby of getting tattoos all over his body shows that he is losing himself.  
    Finally, we see Parker's continued dissatisfaction resolved towards the end of the story when he is drinking: "His head was almost clear of liquor and he observed that his dissatisfaction was gone, but he felt not quite like himself. It was as if he were himself but a stranger to himself, driving into a new country though everything he saw was familiar to him, even at night" (O'Connor 531). Even though Parker is no longer dissatisfied, it seems as though he doesn't feel like himself and is alienated from himself because he is satisfied; he has changed (which is another theme altogether).
    All in all, dissatisfaction is evident in "Parker's Back" by Flannery O'Connor through Parker and Parker's hobby of covering his body with tattoos. It's interesting how this is the first O'Connor story with a heavy presence of tattoos. O'Connor's works are so interesting because they incorporate these "universal themes" of hers (which, for example, racism/racist characters could fit that bill) while incorporating new themes that not all of her stories include like Displacement in "The Displaced Person" and Dissatisfaction in "Parker's Back."

Works Cited

Corn, Alfred. “An Encounter With O’Connor and ‘Parker’s Back.’” The Flannery O’Connor Bulletin, vol. 24, 1995, pp. 104–18. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/26670372. Accessed 1 Mar. 2023.

O'Connor, Flannery. "Parker's Back." The Complete Stories Flannery O'Connor, Giroux, Robert. 1971, pp. 514-533.

Comments

  1. Hannah FruehstorferMarch 1, 2023 at 7:23 PM

    Bobby,

    I like how you referred to Parker's constant urge to get a new tattoo as an addiction because that is exactly how I viewed it. Many people see addictions as just something you can have with a substance such as drugs or alcohol. However, the addictions that aren't to substances are just as, if not more, dangerous. Non-substance addiction can be anything from gambling to video games and can cause financial, physical, and emotional harm. These addictions can worsen and lead to substance abuse. This is perhaps why he no longer feels dissatisfied when he is drinking. His addiction is seemingly changing and evolving as he is.

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