June 19, ....Must Converge

1. What do you make of the title of this story? What is the “everything that rises”? And what things “must converge”? What rose was the status of whites between slavery and the civil rights movement. It was now converging with the status of blacks.
   

1. Like Joy/Hulga from “Good Country People,” Julian is college educated but living with his mother. What similarities do you detect between the Joy/Hulga and Julian? Between their mothers? What about differences? They both seem to be disenchanted with the common people among them, even within their own social class. They feel that the people around them are idiots, and their views of the world are a bit debilitating for them. The mothers are the same inthat they have an undying love for their children, though a limited understanding of how their children really feel and who they really are inside. They both are charachters attached to another time in history, and suffering a bit with the transition, and with age. They both seem to need their more needy child as much as the child needs them.
   

• Which characters out of the story are most sympathetic to you? What about the character(s) makes him/her sympathetic? Julian. At least he's trying to live in the reality in which he lives. His meaness was more out of looking out for the underdog, than baseless prejudice.
  

1. Based on O’Connor’s remarks on the profession of writing in “The Nature and Aim of Fiction,” consider Julian’s college education and intention of becoming a writer. Where in O’Connor’s theories does Julian seem to fit? He probabaly doesn't really have the talent to really write, nor the drive, else he coldn't just sit around waiting to write.
   

1. You have now read two of O’Connor’s short stories. How do you react to the theories about writing (and especially about short fiction) in relation to her fiction? What do you think is the “vision” (last paragraph of the excerpt) she believes is necessary? Do you think she has it? Do you think Julian has it? I thn ability to see without seeing, or to see beyond what you've seen and beyond your ability to see. It is to become possessed by genius, if only for a moment. The writer has to understand what types of situations can provoke such vision in them, and they have to do the ground work in order to become an open conduit for it, but ultimately, no matter how many experiences you've had, or how much you may think you're a writer or you like to write, this vision either strikes you or it doesn't. Julian doesn't seem to have this vision, yet.