Date of Award

Spring 5-24-2025

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Department

English

First Advisor

Benjamin Bergholtz

Abstract

Flannery O’Connor, though often labeled a Southern Gothic writer, preferred to place herself in the genre of “Christian Realism.” For her, the grotesque nature of her stories’ endings reflects not grace itself but the culmination of repeated rejections of grace. In her essays and letters, O’Connor argues that grace should be depicted “the way it comes—through nature,” equating the spiritual with the natural world. In her stories’ farm landscapes, O’Connor presents an ever-present grace through nature that, though often ignored or rejected, serves as a catalyst for spiritual confrontations. When this grace is continually denied, violence becomes the only force capable of awakening her characters. In “The Displaced Person,” O’Connor creates Christ images through nature, demonstrating the environment’s central role in her theological vision. In “Greenleaf,” she expands this vision to explore the paradoxical ideologies of human autonomy versus divine ordination. By comparing the two stories, it becomes clear that rural spaces function as a uniquely gendered Purgatory that disproportionately affects female characters. Through nature, and through the women of “The Displaced Person” and “Greenleaf,” O’Connor presents a difficult truth: grace is always present, but refusing to recognize it can lead to irreversible consequences.

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