The Violent Bear It Away (Criticism)

Criticism

Uma Kukathas

Kukathas is a freelance editor and writer. In this essay, Kukathas considers the relevance of O'Connor's religious vision for modern readers. The Violent Bear It Away is about the fearsome nature of the Christian faith and calling, and about its strange, mysterious, and sometimes awful aspects. The novel tells the story of a young boy, Tarwater, who attempts to renounce his faith and his mission as a prophet, but is pulled back to God and redeemed finally through grace after he receives a holy vision. But the protagonist Tarwater's spiritual journey is bizarre, and the manner in which he comes to acknowledge the divine and assumes his role as a prophet of God is nothing less than horrifying. He kills his mentally retarded cousin by drowning him, but just before he does, he unwittingly baptizes the boy. Soon after, Tarwater is raped by a man who is the incarnation of the devil; Tarwater sees for the first time what evil is, and turns back to God. After seeing a vision, he accepts the mantle of prophet and goes forth to preach this message to the modern world.

To many contemporary readers, Tarwater is certainly a most unlikely prophet, and his spiritual odyssey might appear to be one that leads to madness rather than salvation. But O'Connor, writing in a letter in 1962, insisted that "Tarwater's call is real. ... [H]is true vocation is to answer it. Tarwater is not sick or crazy but really called to be a prophet — a vocation I take seriously, though the modern reader is not likely to." For O'Connor, Tarwater is not a parody of a religious fanatic. He is not a psychological study of a disturbed boy who plays out in his psychoses the indoctrination of his insane, controlling evangelical great-uncle. He is not a satirical portrait of an ill-educated boy from the backwater. He is, for O'Connor, a boy who first rejects, then hears and answers the call of God; he is a spokesperson for the Christian faith. Tarwater is someone who is aware of the truth of the divine. But how is a modern reader supposed to take this — and Tarwater — seriously? Why does O'Connor think that using an unlikable redneck hero, exploring his tortured psyche, and describing his insane-seeming actions will point readers to the truths of the Christian faith?

In her essays and letters, O'Connor frequently noted that her fiction was written with a Christian purpose — that she wrote as a Catholic. She thought of herself as a prophet of sorts, as an artist who could speak forth truth to her society. In fact, while she was writing The Violent Bear It Away, O'Connor often signed her letters with variations of the name "Tarwater." One of her main concerns as a Christian, which she writes about in her nonfiction and which is a major theme of The Violent Bear It Away, is that modern life and secular thinking stifle true understanding of the divine. O'Connor felt that most people viewed religion with apathy, that they thought lazily about morality and spiritual questions. She took it as her role to jolt them out of their complacency to face the harsh realities of God's message. In her essay "The Fiction Writer and His Country," she declares:

The novelist with Christian concerns will find in modern life distortions which are repugnant to him, and his problem will be to make them appear as distortions to an audience which is used to seeing them as natural; and he may be forced to take ever more violent means to get his vision across to this hostile audience. When you can assume that your audience holds the same beliefs you do, you can relax a little and use more normal ways of talking to it; when you have to assume that it does not, then you have to make your vision apparent by shock — to the hard of hearing you shout, and for the blind you draw large and startling figures.

By using large, grotesque characters like Tarwater, and depicting his detestable actions and other horrific events, O'Connor presents a repugnant picture of modern society and the problems it faces. She does this to show to her readers that the faith she speaks of is no easy, comfortable path but one that sometimes entails suffering, violence and destruction. The truths in her vision of Christianity fly in the face of all that modern readers find reasonable, and she means to show that it cannot be ignored, nor sugar-coated. O'Connor uses Tarwater as her protagonist to illuminate two major concerns: that modern secular beliefs hinder understanding of God and that God's message is mysterious, unfathomable, but not to be ignored simply because it is difficult to stomach.

By making the hero of her story an unsophisticated boy from the backwater, O'Connor underscores the idea that the beliefs of educated, rational intellectuals are seriously misguided. On a superficial level, Tarwater seems like a "backwards imbecile," as his uncle, George Rayber, calls him. But Tarwater surveys the world that Rayber introduces to him and quickly finds it spiritually hollow. Tarwater's spiritual guide and teacher is his uncle, Mason Tarwater, who "taught him Figures, Reading, Writing, and History beginning with Adam expelled from the Garden and going on down through the presidents to Herbert Hoover and on in speculation toward the Second Coming." Although the details of his education sound comical, Tarwater is no idiot; he has a sound understanding of religious teachings and a keen mind. His inner voice (of the "stranger") articulates reasoned arguments about the limitations of religion — showing that Tarwater understands and anticipates rationalist objections to faith. Throughout the novel, Tarwater is drawn to Mason's fervent evangelical beliefs even though he struggles to deny their truth. Tarwater goes to the city to seek out Rayber, the representative of reason, of modern humanistic rationalism, but soon Tarwater rejects Rayber's views. It is old Tarwater's vision, the vision of faith, that he embraces and which triumphs against secular ways of seeing. Tarwater's rejection of Rayber's belief — that reason and science can save the world and humanity — are spelled out in a humorous episode in which Rayber tries to impress upon the boy the achievements, such as flying, that humans have accomplished. To this Tarwater replies, "I wouldn't give you nothing for no airplane. A buzzard can fly." Tarwater articulates, in his unsophisticated speech and ultimate choices, that the trappings of modernity, secularism, and rationalism cannot show humans the light, but are a hindrance to ultimate salvation.

Tarwater is a sullen, unlikable boy who is not easy to sympathize with or identify with. The reaction to him by readers is likely to be similar to that of the woman at the Cherokee Lodge: that he is mean and that there is something evil about him. He exhibits no endearing traits that might attract readers to him. If anything, he seems like a troubled boy from a dysfunctional home whose behavior is the result of brainwashing and isolation, and we feel sorry for him. But O'Connor uses this complex, frightening figure to make a bold statement that, like other prophets before him, Francis Marion Tarwater has been chosen by God for reasons that are incomprehensible to people. Tarwater himself does not understand why or if he is chosen. O'Connor explores his confusion, anger, and defiance of his calling. She also examines the suffering he undergoes before he is finally redeemed. He is tortured by the need to be his own person, as Rayber would want him to be, and to be an instrument of God. He is tormented and tempted by voices inside his head. On the one hand, then, what O'Connor seems to be offering is a portrait of someone struggling with mental illness. But part of O'Connor's genius is that she is able to paint Tarwater in such a way that this interpretation of him is perfectly reasonable, even probable. Thus the reader can easily believe, like Rayber does, that Tarwater's problem can be quantified and fixed by human intervention. But the author insists that what reason would have us think is true is simply not true. Tarwater is not mad, although all reasonable indications point to that. He is a prophet, and what appears to us as a descent into madness is a journey away from the temptations of reason to an acceptance of God's frightening and awesome power working through him. By choosing this unlikely hero as God's instrument, O'Connor intensifies the mystery of the divine and satirizes modern humans' hostility toward it.

The violent acts committed by Tarwater in the novel intensify readers' dislike of him, but O'Connor uses those acts to emphasize to readers the seriousness of her subject. As she noted in many of her essays, modern people misunderstand the nature of God and religion. People view God as a Santa Claus figure, and expect religion to make them happy and comforted. But this, O'Connor insisted, is not what religion is all about. As she wrote in a letter in The Habit of Being, "What people don't realize is how much religion costs. They think it is a big electric blanket, when of course it is the cross." By making her protagonist perform horrible, violent acts in his journey to spiritual awakening, O'Connor stresses the point that Christianity requires that people reexamine their morality, that they acknowledge the limitations of their knowledge, that they submit to the incomprehensibility of the divine. The behavior of Tarwater and his old uncle might strike readers as immoral and ungodly. Old Tarwater makes liquor for a living, kidnaps his nephews, and shoots Rayber. Young Tarwater sets his property ablaze and drowns his cousin. But God does not judge them for doing these things, and in fact, those acts are either done in God's name or used to bring them closer to him. Again, by insisting actions that appear insane are necessary for the will of God, O'Connor startles readers into paying attention to the message of Christianity in a way that has not been made palatable and is thus meaningless. With the drowning of Bishop, O'Connor shocks her readers into to looking anew at the meaning of baptism. She uses violence and horror to insist to readers that they need to really look without rose-colored glasses at the awesome nature of religion and faith.

In The Violent Bear It Away, O'Connor draws large and startling figures, and she shouts her message so modern, apathetic readers will take note. She uses Tarwater — a strange, violent, grotesque figure — to present her vision to a hostile audience and show them in extreme terms the importance, difficulty, and urgency of God's message. O'Connor insist that her readers take Tarwater seriously because what he has to say and show is of dire importance, difficult though it may be to fathom and to stomach. In some ways, Tarwater is larger than life because he is used to emphasize O'Connor's beliefs about the intense, bizarre, and incomprehensible nature of God. But any attempt to rationalize that he or his vocation are not to be taken entirely seriously, is to then assume the rationalist position that O'Connor rejects. By presenting an extreme character and extreme situations, O'Connor forces modern readers to look at the most terrible aspects of Christianity. Like a prophet, she presents an uncompromising vision, which she views as necessary to point readers to the mysterious and unpalatable truths of the Christian faith.

Source: Uma Kukathas, Critical Essay on The Violent Bear It Away, in Novels for Students, Thomson Gale, 2005.

Catherine Dybiec Holm

Holm is a freelance writer, as well as a genre novel and short story author. In this essay, Holm looks at how O'Connor develops complex human characters who drive this intense and dark story.

In Flannery O'Connor's The Violent Bear It Away, the reader gets an in-depth look at religious fundamentalism. O'Connor skillfully lets the reader see the effects of such fundamentalism through the eyes of an old man who thinks he is a prophet, a boy who is cynical and questioning beyond his years, and a schoolteacher who believes that salvation comes within oneself rather than from Jesus. O'Connor develops this disturbing story through these complex characters. Using her own understanding and portrayal of human nature, the author allows the reader to draw his or her own conclusions about the effects of fundamentalism and extremist thinking. It is this treatment of such disturbing issues that makes this story infinitely powerful. The author does not shy from violent outcomes. Because the story skillfully builds to horrific events, through the motives and actions of O'Connor's well-developed characters, the outcomes of the story are powerful, disturbing, and ultimately not surprising.

Religion shows up in the first sentence of the story in the form of a burial, which must be done properly in the Christian way. Point of view shifts often in this story, but the common thread of faith runs throughout the book. From the point of view of the old man, the reader can imagine how enraged this character had been when he realized his nephew had been "creeping into his soul through the back door" and had completed a written study about the old man. To the old man, a call from God prompted him to rescue young Tarwater and raise the boy in the backwoods. "The Lord himself had rescued the old man. He had sent him a rage of vision." The old man's visions are often full of rage, and accompanied by extreme action. Other characters in The Violent Bear It Away think the old man is crazy, but the reader does not feel authorial judgment. O'Connor does this by letting the reader into the head of the old man. The reader knows his thoughts, feels his emotion, and even feels sympathy for the old man at times. This use of craft by the author is important — it allows the reader to experience the old man's thoughts and motives, especially in terms of his extreme behavior.

Thanks to O'Connor's treatment and description of the old man, a reader of any faith (or no faith) can feel the disappointment of this character, who awaits a powerful vision and instruction from his God. The old man wants excitement; he wants the sun to burn the world and God to speak to him through fire. Instead, he receives the ordinary. The old man lies to the schoolteacher about impending death, and takes a perverse delight in the concern that is suddenly revealed on the schoolteacher's face. The schoolteacher, for an instant, reveals a "stricken look, plain and awful," when he learns of the old man's death. The phenomenon of longing for passion and direction in life, or of longing for excitement and drive and importance and love, is an urge that any reader can relate to, religious or not. It is through telling detail such as this that O'Connor makes her characters remarkably human and real, winning at least some degree of empathy from the reader.

O'Connor's characters, even those who are not as extreme as the old man, often long for greatness to appear, religious or otherwise. Who has not wished for life to be better, fuller, richer? Often, the characters are not rewarded with visions or experiences of greatness. While this may be interpreted by some as authorial cynicism, it gets at the heart of the human condition and adds to the complexity of these characters. Even the boy wishes for, or at least waits for, the greatness and thundering presence of God. It makes sense that he would expect this, having been raised with the extremism of his great-uncle. In one case, O'Connor uses such a situation to show the stark contrast between what is wished for, and what is:

There was a complete stillness over everything and the boy felt his heart begin to swell. He held his breath as if he were about to hear a voice from on high. After a few moments he heard a hen scratching beneath him under the porch.

With a few short sentences, O'Connor has given the reader dark humor, the dichotomy between wished-for greatness and ordinary reality, and a reminder of the boy's poor, backwoods setting.

The boy is again disappointed on his first trip to the city. In a place full of 75,000 people, none will look at him; none will meet his eyes or shake his hand. O'Connor captures the impersonality of the city with her efficient and effective prose when she describes "the mass of moving metal and concrete speckled with the very small eyes of people." Even though the boy resists the pull of his so-called destiny, he also longs for purpose, to be called by God as his great-uncle was called. He says of the city, "When I come here for good I'll do something to make every eye stick on me." It is a dark foreshadow of the book's ending. Even when his great-uncle recounts the story of the boy's baptism as a baby, the boy is sure that he was fully and cognitively aware of the events around him. The boy desperately wants to believe he is different, special, and beyond ordinary. At the same time, he is so burdened by his so-called destiny to baptize Bishop, that he drowns the child, in order to be free of that destiny.

Young Tarwater provides a foil to contrast the extremism of the old man. Interestingly, for the reader, the contrast between the two is not as simple as the old man being a believer and the boy being an adamant disbeliever. The layers within the boy's logic make the contrast between the two more interesting, and more realistically human. It also makes the boy another surprising character. Again, O'Connor has avoided creating stereotypical, flat characters and given the reader some nuances of personality to think about. When the old man is sure that young Tarwater's first task (when the old man dies) will be to baptize the dim witted child of the schoolteacher, young Tarwater has other things in mind:

"Oh no it won't be," he said. "He don't mean for me to finish up your leavings. He has other things in mind for me." "It's no part of your job to think for the Lord," his great-uncle said. "Judgment may rack your bones."

Ironically, the old man has assumed a God-like position over the boy, by telling the boy that there is no question about young Tarwater's future duties to God. But the more interesting thing about this exchange is young Tarwater's presence of mind to not automatically accept direction from an authority figure, and to have some thoughts about his own direction. Still, visions of greatness constantly clash with the mundane ordinariness of everyday life. The boy continues to believe that greatness will be part of his life. After all, he was born in a car wreck. Young Tarwater is sure that being born in such a way "set his existence apart from the ordinary one . . . the plans of God for him were special." Again, the author effectively captures the human longing for meaning. And yet, the rational Rayber gives the boy pause:

Rayber smiled, then he laughed. "All such people have in life," he said, "is the conviction they'll rise again." The boy steadied himself, his eyes still on the banner but as if he had reduced it to a small spot a great distance away. "They won't rise again?" he said.

O'Connor shows the reader that the boy has a mind of his own. The boy feels a "charge of excitement," almost a "sensual satisfaction," when the great-uncle tells him of the schoolteacher's fortitude. The schoolteacher will raise his child Bishop as he pleases. Similarly, Young Tarwater will shape his destiny the way in the way he wants. It is ironic that Bishop who will be raised as if he is "free" probably does not have the mental capacity to understand and implement these advantages.

When young Tarwater comes to the city, despite years of influence from the old man, the boy intends to find out how much of what his uncle told him was true. Somehow, the boy realizes that there may be other versions of reality and belief in the world beyond the old man and his backwoods home. It is the boy's consistent edginess, doubt, and argumentativeness that make him a well-rounded and interesting character; it is also these flaws that send him over the edge.

The schoolteacher is also a foil to the great-uncle's beliefs, providing the possibility for change in the direction of young Tarwater's life. The schoolteacher somehow managed to shed what he considers old Tarwater's brainwashing and is free of old Tarwater's "idiot hopes" and "foolish violence." When the old man realizes he is reading about himself in the magazine, the schoolteacher offers his own, contrasting understanding of being born again. "You've got to be born again, Uncle, by your own efforts, back to the real world where there's no saviour but yourself." But the schoolteacher recognizes the common link between himself, the boy, and the old man — the potential for great internal emotion and violence. The schoolteacher is able to stop himself in the act of violence, but the boy is too far gone to know better.

Bishop, perhaps, presents the greatest enigma in the story. This child links the schoolteacher, the old man, and young Tarwater. To the schoolteacher, Bishop is formed in the "image and likeness of God." To young Tarwater, Bishop looks like a young and innocent old man. To the old man, and to young Tarwater, Bishop represents young Tarwater's calling — he must be baptized. The schoolteacher experiences surges of terrifying and unexplainable love around Bishop. And it is ironic, perhaps intentionally so, that the schoolteacher, who spends less time seeking greatness than the boy or the fundamentalist old man, encounters the greatness and expansiveness of true love — quite beyond the ordinary. Also ironically, the schoolteacher spends his life trying to squelch the greatness within himself. But for all his effort, he still has moments when "his hated love gripped him and held him in a vise." Rayber knows that he has a divided self — both rational and violent. He warns young Tarwater not to go to extremes; that extremes are only for violent people: "He had kept it from gaining control over him by what amounted to a rigid ascetic discipline. He did not look at anything too long, he denied his senses unnecessary satisfaction."

In the end, violence is what young Tarwater resorts to in order to escape his destiny. "I proved it by drowning him. Now all I have to do is mind my own bidnis until I die," young Tarwater tells us, "I don't have to baptize or prophecy." But Tarwater's destiny is planted too deeply within him, like the seed that he shares with the schoolteacher and the old man. And in the end, the act of violence and rape committed against Tarwater sends him over the edge and plants him firmly into the destiny that he resisted, the destiny of becoming a prophet. Tarwater has achieved his greatness, and has surpassed the mundane everyday life, but at great cost to himself and to others. And the reader has experienced a disturbing and powerful story through the experiences and motives of these effectively drawn characters.

Source: Catherine Dybiec Holm, Critical Essay on The Violent Bear It Away, in Novels for Students, Thomson Gale, 2005.

Joyce Hart

Hart is a freelance writer and author of several books. In this essay, Hart examines the various combatants in the battle between good and evil in O'Connor's novel The Violent Bear It Away.

There has long been a discussion about the characters in Flannery O'Connor's The Violent Bear It Away. This dialogue revolves around not just how the characters act and what their motives are but also includes an exchange of ideas concerning what each character represents. This is obviously a novel about the battle between good and evil, but on which side of this battle do the characters stand? And, maybe more importantly, which of the characters wins the battle? Is old man Tarwater a representative of good or evil? And where does that put Rayber, the character who stands diametrically opposed to the old man? And then there is the third main character, the young boy Francis Marion Tarwater who teeters somewhere in the middle of the two extremes of old Tarwater and Rayber. Does the young boy capitulate toward evil by the end of the novel? Or does he see his way clear to the bright light of goodness? And last but not least, just what is goodness? Or at least, how does this novel define this abstract quality?

The reviews were mixed when The Violent Bear It Away was first published. O'Connor believed that this was to be expected. She concluded that most readers would not be able to understand the concepts that she portrayed in this short novel. Not only were her ideas abstract, the beliefs that inspired her story were formed by an in-depth study of obscure Catholic dogma. But there are other reasons why readers might have had (and probably still have) trouble comprehending O'Connor's attempt to define good and evil as well as the interior discourse that her characters face in trying to claim goodness in their fictional lives. One major reason for the confusion could be caused by the fact that her characters appear to be muddled in their own thinking. Or it might be that the author herself is unsure about what defines goodness and evil.

Take Old Man Tarwater, for example. In letters to her friends, as published in Flannery O'Connor, Collected Works, O'Connor refers to old Tarwater as a natural man. In her way of thinking this is so because the old man does what he wants, when he wants, to whomever he chooses. Cultural or societal rules mean nothing to him. He is a man of very strong convictions, most of which come directly from his interpretations of the Bible. His analysis of this ancient text is unfettered by other historic accounts or by the outcome of intellectual study. Old Tarwater lives his life based on his instincts. And it is these personal intuitions that help elucidate the Biblical phrases that he reads. The Bible, for instance, says what it says because old Tarwater believes that is what it says. He believes himself to be a prophet — a man to whom God speaks directly. Therefore, accordingly, what Tarwater believes is what God wants him to believe. Old Tarwater's actions, he believes, are directed by God, regardless of society's judgment. In his mind, Tarwater 's motives, thoughts, and actions are all good.

In today's world, however, old Tarwater would be hounded by the FBI until he was shackled and taken to prison. He kidnaps not just one child but two children. And he would have kidnapped a third child, Bishop, but he never gets the chance. He does, however, manage to steal his nephew, Rayber, when Rayber was just a child. Later, the old man takes the young Tarwater boy back to his isolated shack in the woods. When Rayber tries to reclaim the young boy, Tarwater shoots Rayber. Then, after Rayber abandons the idea of rescuing young Tarwater, the old man teaches the boy to lie to state authorities who come to register him for school. This is all done in the name of God, in the name of a religion that has only one member: Old Man Tarwater. He believes he is saving the young boy as he tried to save Rayber before him. And he instructs the young boy to continue his work upon his death.

Then at the other end of the social spectrum, there is Rayber. O'Connor has created this character as the antithesis of the old man. Rayber is all about society and the modern emphasis on science versus superstition. Rayber's world is comprised of so-called facts. He is an intellectual, whose beliefs rely heavily on the results of very precise empirical tests. Whereas old man Tarwater gives free rein to his emotions, which in turn feed his intuitions and inspire him, Rayber confines his feelings, keeping them under control so they will not interfere with his reasoning processes. "To feel nothing," O'Connor writes of Rayber, "was peace." Rayber fears his emotions will drive him insane. "The longing [emotion] was like an undertow in his blood dragging him backwards to what he knew to be madness." If he allows his emotions freedom, he is concerned he will turn out to be just like the old man. If he is to experience any emotion, he concludes, it will be under the rigid controls of his intellect.

On the positive side, Rayber raises his mentally impaired son, providing him with as much stimulating experiences as possible. He sees to the child's needs and at moments admits to himself that he loves the child. Although this love is frightening, Rayber cannot escape it. And when young Tarwater wanders into town, Rayber takes him in without hesitation. Rayber's hope and goal is to rehabilitate the young Tarwater. Rayber believes that the old man has brainwashed the young boy. He knows this to be true, because the old man had tried to do the same thing to Rayber. The old man had wanted Rayber to see the world as he saw it. And Rayber knows that young Tarwater is struggling in trying to decipher the world. He recalls his own challenges in trying to measure the meaning of life, on one hand, according to old Tarwater's beliefs and on the other hand, on the personal experiences he was living through on his own. Rayber senses that young Tarwater is doing the same; and he wants to support him in his efforts, secretly hoping to convince him that the old man was wrong and Rayber's vision of the world is right.

But Rayber, like old man Tarwater, has a very dark side. He admits to having tried to drown his son, Bishop, an act he had performed in order to rid himself of his emotions for the child. He could not pull it off, however, because in the midst of his attempt, he realized that the ache of not having his son in his life would have been as great as the ache of having him alive. But this insight does not prevent Rayber from secretly and passively allowing young Tarwater to drown Bishop.

Rayber lies on a cot in the hotel room, waiting "for a cataclysm. He waited for all the world to be turned into a burnt spot between two chimneys." With these words, the reader understands that Rayber subconsciously wants not only young Tarwater but also Bishop to be somehow removed from his life. He wants there to be nothing but their ashes remaining, much as he believes that there was nothing but ashes left of old Tarwater once the house at Powderhead was burned down. He wants all memories of his kin, the people who rouse the most emotions in him, to be gone. This will give him peace, he concludes. So when he hears his son yell out in the night as Rayber stares out of the window that overlooks the lake on which young Tarwater is drowning Bishop, Rayber does nothing. He merely remains "standing woodenly" at the window. And in the end, when silence returns to the dark night, when the full impact of Bishop's drowning hits him, Rayber feels no pain.

Finally there is young Tarwater. Who is this character? If old man Tarwater represents the emotional prophet of God, and Rayber represents the rational man of modern society, then young Tarwater might be the bridge between the two. Or at least that is what the reader is led to believe as the young boy begins his journey into town after the old man dies. Whereas the old man and Rayber are more definitely sure of where they stand, young Tarwater wavers. For instance, young Tarwater insists to Rayber that he is fully aware of how the old man has tried to brainwash him and has therefore risen above it all. "With me," he tells Rayber, the old man's teachings "fell on rock and the wind carried it away." He believes he is unaffected, although Rayber points out that young Tarwater, if he were truly untouched by the old man, would not be so obsessed with baptizing Bishop. Young Tarwater ponders Rayber's accusations about his obsession with baptizing Bishop and then denies it. Even when he relates the details of the drowning to a stranger, young Tarwater says, "It was an accident. I didn't mean to." But it is not the drowning that he is referring to. It is the baptism. "The words just come out of themselves but it don't mean nothing." Young Tarwater has more remorse, at this point, for the so-called accidental baptism than he does for the premeditated murder. And it is the baptism and death of Bishop that creates the fork in the road that young Tarwater is traveling on.

Whereas previously, Tarwater had been exploring the secular world, bringing his strange concepts of the world to the city, he now begins his return to Powderhead and social obscurity. But O'Connor is not finished with him yet. She conjures up yet one more trial for the young boy. In a letter to Louise Abbot, O'Connor writes that as she interprets it, "hell is what God's love becomes to those who reject it." And since immediately after Bishop's drowning, young Tarwater states that there is no sense in baptizing because one cannot be reborn, O'Connor drops the boy into another scene that resembles hell. She has him drugged and raped. Then to emphasize her symbolic language, she has young Tarwater set the scene ablaze.

So where does the battle between good and evil take place in this novel? And who represents which side? The old man is a self-professed prophet directed by God. This should put him on the side of good. But he commits crimes against society, which would deem him bad. Rayber, as seen through the eyes of modern culture, may appear confused but not evil. And young Tarwater, who commits the most serious crime would be, at the least, classified as corrupt. According to law, the old man, young Tarwater, and Rayber might all have spent time in jail. But is this a true accounting of good and evil? And more specifically, is this what O'Connor had intended?

In a letter to John Hawkes on September 13, 1959, O'Connor writes, "The modern reader will identify himself with the school teacher, but it is the old man who speaks for me." With this statement, readers have the first clue as to where the author has placed her characters on the goodness spectrum. For O'Connor, old man Tarwater was the most natural of the characters and therefore the most "good." In contrast, Rayber was a secular man, a man of the world. And not only was Rayber involved with social customs, he was at the leading edge. Rayber was a man of modern science, trusting the tenets of the new world of psychology as much as the old man trusted the laws of the Bible. But in O'Connor's mind, as she states in a letter to William Sessions on September 13, 1960, Old Man Tarwater was true to "his own character." In contrast, as O'Connor writes to Alfred Corn on July 25, 1962, Rayber fought "his inherited tendency to mystical love"; and when Rayber watches the drowning of his son, Bishop, by his not stopping the murder, he "makes the Satanic choice."

"Sin is sin," O'Connor writes to Dr. T. R. Spivey on August 19, 1959, "whether it is committed by Pope, bishops, priests, or lay people." And yet she quickly dismisses the murder of Bishop and young Tarwater's involvement in it. She writes to "A" on July 25, 1959: "Someday if I get up enough courage I may write a story or a novella about Tarwater in the city. There would be no reformatory I assure you. That murder is forgotten by God and of no interest to society." So, according to O'Connor, young Tarwater follows in old Tarwater's footsteps — along the path of goodness. If this is how O'Connor delineates the difference between good and evil, it is no wonder that is it difficult for readers to determine who has won the battle in this muddled novel.

Source: Joyce Hart, Critical Essay on The Violent Bear It Away, in Novels for Students, Thomson Gale, 2005.

What Do I Read Next?

• Wise Blood (1952) is O'Connor's first novel. It tells the story of young Hazel Motes who, like Francis Tarwater, is caught in a struggle against his innate faith.
• O'Connor's most celebrated collection of short stories, A Good Man Is Hard to Find and Other Stories (1955), is a classic of Southern Gothic literature that tells of the underside of life in the rural South.
• The posthumously-published The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O'Connor (1988) offers a self-portrait of an author who otherwise revealed very little of herself.
• The subjects of O'Connor's essays in her prose collection Mystery and Manners (1969) include writing, religion, teaching literature, and the grotesque in Southern fiction.
• In Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith (2003), Jon Krakauer recounts the chilling story of Dan and Ron Lafferty, Mormon brothers who in 1984 murdered their sister-in-law and infant niece in the name of a divine revelation, and it explores one type of modern-day religious fundamentalism in the United States.
• In Lost Revolutions: The South in the 1950s (2000), Peter Daniel chronicles the changes that transformed the South in the period following World War II and describes the culture that developed from poverty, religious fundamentalism, and racial obsessions.
• A Curtain of Green and Other Stories (1941) is the first collection of stories by Eudora Welty, another Southern woman whose work contains elements of horror and humor.
• Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence (2003), by Mark Juergens-meyer, explores the mindset of those who perpetrate and support violence in the name of religion.