Opowiadanie protestu, protestowanie
Narrating Protest, Protesting

Flannery O’Connor and the American Civil Rights Movement

Author(s): Mirosława Buchholtz
Subject(s): Studies of Literature, Sociology, Polish Literature, Philology, Theory of Literature
Published by: Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego
Keywords: Flannery O’Connor; racial segregation; protest; civil rights; American South
Summary/Abstract: The short story "Everything that Rises Must Converge" (1965) has often been read in the context of Flannery O’Connor’s Catholicism. However, the conflicts reflected in the short story are far more varied than that. What is more, in portraying generational, class, and racial conflicts, O’Connor does not give either side an edge on the opponent. The protests of a young college graduate and of random people, both Afro-American and white (including „white trash”), unfold in the microcosm of a city bus and on the street. The unnamed historical context of racial segregation is only implied in such telling phrases as „integrated [buses]” or „bottom rail up”. The idea of civil disobedience propagated by Henry David Thoreau and taken over by the leader of the civil rights movement, Martin Luther King resounds in the background. The claim of the French Jesuit Pierre Teilhard de Chardin quoted in the story’s title and confronted with the material reality of the street emerges as an ambiguous message of malediction and consolation. The essay focuses on the ways of representing protest and argues that O’Connor’s story not only narrates, but also enacts a protest.

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