Flannery O'Connor's writing: a guide for the perplexed

Modern Age, Wntr, 2005 by Michael M. Jordan

Epistolary Humor and Wit

Let us begin with the humor and wit evident in her letters. Actually, the letters reveal the humor and wit, the Christian vision, and some of her views of the writer's art. This suggests something of her integrity as a private person and a public author.

Her letters are astonishing when one considers O'Connor's circumstances when most of them were written: in 1951, at the age of 26, she was afflicted with lupus erythematosus, a painful, debilitating, incurable disease which had killed her father and slowly killed her. She occasionally mentions her sickness in her letters, but there is no sentimentality, no self-pity. When she does mention herself or her sickness in these letters, she reveals a good deal of sardonic humor and comic self-deprecation. But let us sample the comedy, the sparkling wit, and the witty judgments in some of these letters.

In a letter to Brainard Cheney, O'Connor explains that she and her mother, Regina, attend the 7:15 mass. Why? "I like to go to early mass so I won't have to dress up--combining the 7th Deadly Sin with the Sunday obligation." Concerning some photographs which Mrs. Cheney had sent to her, O'Connor self-deprecatingly observes: "That decidedly ain't me except in the picture which looks like an ad for acid indigestion. People in Nashville will wonder what you fed me." When plans were being made for a pilgrimage to Rome, O'Connor wrote to the Cheneys:

  My mother is all for it. I am not so sure I can stand it--17 days of
  Holy Exhaustion--but I suppose this is the only way I'll ever get
  there. My mother and me facing Europe will be just like Mr. Head and
  Nelson facing Atlanta. [Mr. Head and Nelson are characters in her
  story "The Artificial Nigger."] Culture don't effect me none and my
  religion is better served at home; but I see plenty of comic
  possibilities in this trip. (6)

Writing to Sally and Robert Fitzgerald, O'Connor indicated what she might do with money she received from a Kenyon Fellowship: she thought of broadening her perspective

  into the ways of the vulgar. I would like to go to California for
  about two minutes to further these researches, though at times I feel
  that a feeling for the vulgar is my natural talent and don't need any
  particular encouragement. Did you see the picture of Roy Rogers's
  horse attending a church service in Pasadena? I forgot whether his
  name was Tex or Trigger but he was dressed fit to kill and looked like
  he was having a good time. He doubled the usual attendance. (7)

As it turned out, O'Connor never went to California. She knew that she did not have to go to California, New York City or any other place to find vulgarity, freaks, or sinners. She knew that poor taste, not to mention modern and ancient vices, easily took root in Southern hearts and minds.

In a late letter to Sally Fitzgerald, written in 1964 "after her return from the hospital and surgery," she wrote:

  One of my nurses was a dead ringer for Mrs. Turpin [the protagonist in
  O'Connor's "Revelation"]. Her Claud was named Otis. She told all the
  time about what a good nurse she was. Her favorite grammatical
  construction was "it were." She said she treated everybody alike
  whether it were a person with money or a black nigger. She told me all
  about the low life in Wilkinson County. I seldom know in any given
  circumstances whether the Lord is giving me a reward or a punishment.
  She didn't know she was funny and it was agony to laugh and I reckon
  she increased my pain about 100%. (8)