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Mary Flannery O'Connor

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Mary Flannery O'Connor
Mary Flannery O'Connor is one of the most preeminent and more unique short story authors in American Literature (O'Connor 1). While growing up she lived in the Bible-belt South during the post World War II era of the United States. O'Connor was part of a strict Roman Catholic family, but she depicts her characters as Fundamentalist Protestants. Her characters are also severely spiritually or physically disturbed and have a tendency to be violent, arrogant or overly stupid. (Garraty 582) She mixes in her works a full-fledged gothic eeriness with an authentic feeling for the powers of grace and redemption. O'Connor's substantial literary reputation is based upon her two novels and her short stories collected in Everything That Rises Must Converge (1965), A Good Man is Hard to Find (1955), and The Complete Short Stories of Flannery O'Connor. Despite the fact that her unique style of writing has caused many judgments and rumors about her, O'Connor has received many awards and honors throughout her entire life.

On March 25, 1925, Mary Flannery O'Connor was born in Savannah, Georgia as a first and only child to a strict Roman Catholic couple. Her parents were Edward Francis O'Connor, a real estate broker, and Regina L. Cline O'Connor. (Garraty 581) Until 1938 O'Connor attended St. Vincent and Sacred Heart Parochial Schools. She was known as Mary in grade school but eventually dropped it and went by Flannery O'Connor. (Garraty 581) During grade school O'Connor claimed that her hobby was collecting rejection slips. Then the family moved to the Cline house in Milledgeville, Georgia when her father became sick with disseminated lupus. Lupus is a disease of the connective tissue, which would later claim her life. While in Milledgeville, O'Connor went to school at Peabody High School (Garraty 582). During high school she wrote and illustrated books while still maintaining a high academic average. Her father died of lupus in 1941. In 1942, at the age of 16, O'Connor entered


Cited: Garraty, John A. "Mary Flannery O 'Connor" Dictionary of American Biography: Supplement Seven. 1981 edition. "O 'Connor, Flannery." DISCovering Authors Modules Online. Galenet; 30 March 1999. Polk, Noel. "Flannery O 'Connor." The World Book encyclopedia. Fourteenth edition. 1992.
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