Group 1 O'Connor Discussion


"The River"

Shared knowledge and the reader
I feel that the way in which O’Connor thrusts us right into the story without an intro to setting or characters left me a little bit in the dark at first as to what was actually going on with Harry/Bevel. However this did not make the story any more difficult as there was a reason which O’Connor chose to do this and eventually he leads you to the conclusion that Bevel’s life at home was much the same way as the readers are in the beginning…in the dark. I began to fill in these gaps shortly after Bevel goes to the revival and is then returned home to where his parents are hosting other friends, leaving Bevel to the conclusion that he doesn’t really “count”; unlike in the eyes of God, where he feels like he indeed does “count”, which leads him back to the river the next morning, so he can “count” again in the "the Kingdom of Christ in the river". - Craig_Forde001

I probably wouldn't have been aware of this point if I wasn't reading the story for this class, but I think what makes the opening of her story so good, and why it works, is because our brains are like little meaning-making machines--they are always trying to put pieces together, and oftentimes decide on their own that something is there that really isn't (like those psych. tests where a person is shown 4 lines that don't quite connect, but the brain just fills in the gap and shows us a square...only later do you see the picture as it actually is). So, I am caught up in the story almost without knowing why...the "why" is that my brain wants to put these characters in some kind of order. O'connor gives just enough info to add to the puzzle, so the tension builds, but not enough to satisfy our curosity, even though we want that release from not knowing what things mean. --Bobby Keefe

Throughout reading I could see that there were clearly two different societies involved in the novel and that each had their own shared knowledge, and Harry/Bevel seemed to be caught in the middle. The first community was the one which Harry/Bevel and his parents belong to, and the other that Mrs. Cronnin belonged to. Mrs. Cronnin believed heavily in her faith taking Harry/Bevel to the surmon, where Harry/Bevel's parents did not. O'Connor writes, "He had found out already this morning that he had been made by a carpenter named Jesus Christ. Before he had thought it had been a doctor named Sladewall, a fat man with a yellow mustache who gave him shots and thought his name was Herbert, but this must have been a joke. They joked a lot where he lived" (163). Harry/Bevel mentions more than once that where he came from everything was a "joke". Harry/Bevel seems to be caught between what he has learned from his parents, and being interested in what he is learning from Mrs. Cronnin. It seems as though he was not raised in a very religious family, making what he was learning very overpowering and he clearly did not know how to take it all in (I got that from when he goes back to the river). - jenna_almeida001

discourse/textual context
When we as readers are introduced to the characters in “The River” we are aware that Harry/Bevel's father has found someone to take his child off his hands for the day while his wife (and possibly him) recover from hangovers. Harry/Bevel knows they get hangovers and has seen them drinking/partying. Flannery O'Connor has us consider Harry from his perspective as Bevel, when he is in control, and not being shuffled around by adults. O'Connor wants us to fill in the blanks as Bevel does. O'Connor wants us to attempt to understand the story through his perspective as a child who is gaining awareness of his surroundings and attempting to make sense of Mrs. Cronnin's religious beliefs. An example of O'Connor having us directly witness Bevel's difference in social/cultural communities from Mrs. Cronnin is when Bevel tells the preacher that his mother “hasn't got up yet […] she has a hangover” (168). Bevel is not aware that within this social setting of a healing meeting and Baptism praying for someone who is believed to be sick, but instead has a hangover is not socially acceptable and is seen as a joke. Where Bevel is used to a society with his parents based on joking, he was not aware of his statement of his mother having a hangover as being a joke. - Emily Pahud

The author uses the child Harry (or Bevel) as a pivot between two worlds, that of Harry's parents, and Mrs Cronnin. The two discourse communities, with Harry situated between, allows the reader a purview into two separate social/cultural environments. In one, a sick mother is really just hung over, likely a society woman who is found entertaining guests when Mrs. Cronnin returns the sodden child from her own social event - the baptism and healing held at the river. There, the discovery that the boy's mother really just has an alcohol affliction is mocked. Similarly, Mrs Cronnin's consternation at Harry's ignorance of Jesus Christ remarks on the entirely opposed belief systems held by the two communities. Mrs. Cronnin's exit, without taking her pay from Harry's father who has been drinking, concludes the chapter with the same judgment that was evident from the beginning of the chapter when Mrs. Cronnin's disdainful remarks issued from behind the door. - vijaylaxsmi_kesav001