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O'Connor's Everything That Rises Must Converge

Themes, Ideas, Symbolism and Irony in Race and Tolerance

Apr 6, 2009 Megan B. Wyatt

O'Connor's story demonstrates the generation gap between racism and openness on the surface, but a closer read reveals the theme of understanding any person's views.

Flannery O'Connor's short stories are studied in classrooms across the world. "Everything that Rises Must Converge" was first published in 1961 and makes a statement about the Civil Rights Movement and desegregation happening across America.

The story illustrates the generation gap between Julian, who represents the Civil Rights Movement and tolerance, and his mother, who represents racism and close-mindedness, but the story doesn't just harp on right and wrong with race, but openness and tolerance for the previous generation's ideas.

Flannery O'Connor and The Use of the Unreasonable

Flannery O'Connor is one the most important contributors to modern American fiction. Her works use what O'Connor calls "the reasonable use of the unreasonable," which makes her works appear violent and grotesque on the surface, but O'Connor justifies these extreme situations because their use is used to make a greater moral statement.

The Generation Gap Between Julian and His Mother

Julian’s generation of civil rights movements causes him to disapprove of his mother’s generation of racism in Flannery O’Connor’s “Everything that Rises Must Converge."

Instead of including his mother in the list of people who deserve love, equality, and tolerance, irony begins working through the story through Julian’s intolerance and hypocrisies toward his own mother, somebody much closer and more real than the people he begs his mother to love.

The Changing Roles of Blacks and Whites in America

“Everything that Rises Must Converge” demonstrates the changing roles of blacks and whites in America from the mother’s generation to Julian’s generation. The most obvious sign of near-equality of the black woman to Julian’s mother is the black woman’s hideous but expensive hat that matches Julian’s mother’s own hat.

Julian’s mother, however, does not view her as her equal, instead planning a gesture that Julian’s mother only registers unconsciously as condescending but consciously thinks is a good deed. It is this deed that leads to her downfall, but what ultimately destroys Julian’s mother is Julian’s harsh criticism and condescension toward her, proving he is less tolerant than his mother.

The Story's Underlying Message

In Julian’s concern for other people’s equality and rights, he has forgotten the lesson his mother tried to show him: you must look within yourself and figure out who you are before you can love another. It is this irony that leaves Julian completely alone and loveless as his mother’s eye raked in his face a final time, seeing nothing.