The Ugliest Pilgrim Analysis

Temptation and the Grotesque:
Religion in “Good Country People” and “The Ugliest Pilgrim”
Religion and writing have always gone hand in hand. It is an issue with so many dimensions that the question is never fully resolved, leaving it constantly open for debate. Most writers, both past and present, either directly or indirectly, incorporate some sort of religious symbolism into their writing. A vast majority of contemporary writers choose to try and hold religious ideas and statements to a minimum. Other writers are considerably more open with religion and make no attempts to hide it; on the contrary, they weave religious symbolism, ideals, and salvation into their writing. Flannery O’Connor and Doris Betts are two such writers from the “intensely religious Bible Belt” of the South who have been lumped in
Her fascination lay within the other faith that she observed throughout her life, the fundamentalist Protestants of the twentieth century. Christian themes show traces in each of her stories-fall and redemption, nature and grace, sin and innocence (Friedman, Clark 138.) O’Connor believed in both the God and the Devil, and both were present throughout most of her work; however, Evil, and the Devil make a more common appearance in her work. Preston Browning Jr. compares her to Nathanial Hawthorne, saying “I believe it is accurate to say that no American author since Hawthorne has made such an extensive use of the devil” (6). Frederick Hoffman accuses O’Connor’s work of being preoccupied “with the Christ figure, a use of Him that is scarcely equaled by her contemporaries” (15:411). These views seem to be contradictory, but perhaps it is through the lack of a clear “Him” in many of her stories, with the focus on violence, despair, and grotesqueness, both physically and spiritually, that makes this preoccupation most