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“Remain true to yourself, but move every upward toward greater consciousness and greater love! At the summit you will find yourselves united with all those who, from every direction, have made the same ascent. For everything that rises must converge.”
-Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
Originally published - January 1965
Author - Flannery O'Connor
Pages - 269 pp
Publisher - Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Characters - Julian's Mother, Julian, Ruby Turpin, Mrs. Greenleaf, Mrs. May.
Genres - Short story, Fiction
Introduction
Everything that rises must converge. This is the title of Flannery O'Connor's 1965 collection of short stories, as well as the title of one of the nine stories included.
The short story, like many others by O'Connor, is set in the Gothic Fiction genre and tackles issues like racism, hypocrisy (virtue signalling? ), and the generational and class divide during desegregation.
The mysterious title "Everything The Rises Must Converge" demonstrates O'Connor's ability to infuse her prose with mystery. The title is generally interpreted to refer to Pierre Teilhard de Chardin's philosophies, in which O'Connor identifies, if not answers, at least a decent collection of questions.
An Insight Into the Story: Non-Spoiler Alert
"Everything That Rises Must Converge," like much of O'Connor's fiction, therefore has mother-figure as its fulcrum. The story takes place in the South at a time when buses were only starting to be integrated.
Julian's mother has made many sacrifices in order to send her charming and intelligent son to college. She has kept up composure in the midst of squalor and southern degradation, and now she can think back on the difficult times she has overcome with a smile.
Julian is displeased and ungrateful. He believes he is too knowledgeable to be successful and is already as disillusioned as a 50-year-old man: "he could not forgive her that she had accepted the struggle and that she felt she had succeeded."
The action, as seen through Julian's eyes, portrays him as a supremely fair and reasonable man who is embarrassed by his mother's unwillingness to adapt to modern life.
Julian withdraws into and out of his own "mental bubble" not only to alleviate his mother's ignorance, but also to escape the depression caused by their poverty. O'Connor has embroiled the possibility of revelation in this dispute.
“With grown people, a road led either to heaven or hell, but with children there were always stops along the way where their attention could be turned with a trifle.”
-Flannery O'Connor
On the bus, they meet other white women who hold similar beliefs to the mother. Meanwhile, a black woman with her son Carver boards and Julian hopes that the black woman must sit with his mother again, hoping that it will be a good lesson for her. In the conversation between the women, O'Connor captures the atmosphere of abrupt change.
Julian's mother bothers his son's sense of fact with her "imaginary integrity," but she also tests his self-righteous liberalism by implicitly promoting deviation in the newly integrated South: "They should rise, yes, but on their own side of the fence."
Typically, O'Connor's protagonists progress through a personal epiphany in which the logical and rational world of everyday encounters is swept aside, leading to the recognition of a cosmos of spirit wherein sin and moral choices are still a problem.
Elements of Racism in the Story
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At first glance, Julian's opinions on racism are easy to understand. He fantasizes about befriending black people in order to annoy his mother and seems to be ungrateful and hypocritical.
His mother, on the other hand, is openly racist, although in a clueless, naive manner. It's difficult to be disappointed with her since there are hints about her childhood, indications pointing to the way of life she'd known.
But I must confess that as the story unfolds, so does my annoyance with Julian’s dislike towards his mother and his endless daydreaming about imparting her a lesson.
O'Connor preserves a fictive, but factual portrait of the time period by telling the tale from the perspective of Julian, a direct descendant of wealthy white slave owners trying to reconcile his family background, his current family's poverty, and the changing racial atmosphere in the South.
O'Connor employs the story's characters to depict how it was during that era. The bus journey acts as a manifestation, revealing how ordinary citizens (both black and white) dealt with integration after years of segregation.
Subtle Balance of the Technicalities
It's a mysterious title, but the things that follow are so actual (a weight-loss class and a bus ride) and the points of convergence so amusing (unlikely moms and the wearing of the same hat) that an opposing and entirely comedic viewpoint constantly threatens to overshadow the tragic and enigmatic. O'Connor's work is full of tensions like this.
The stories may seem to have little action at first, but the characters' inner lives are rich and complex as they grapple with existential problems while handling "everyday" circumstances.
As readers we will be captivated by O'Connor's subtle elegance of expression, how she weaves recurring motifs in her novels, such as "violent eyes," and how she designs passive components like the weather and even clothes to foreshadow the plot and represent moods and themes.
So when you read, consider these tales to be a time capsule or a snapshot of history, captured by a woman who lived both inside and outside the southern subculture to provide unique and fascinating social commentary.
Psychological Analysis
The Two Faces of the Same Coin:
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“Even a child with normal feet was in love with the world after he had got a new pair of shoes.”
-Flannery O'Connor
It is painfully clear in the story that both Julian and his mother are racist in their very own ways. But who made these two racist characters?? That’s where you can give your mind a quick drill and research more about the author’s background.
What is True Culture?
O'Connor and her words have remained relevant more than fifty years after her death for a reason. Julian and his mother argue about culture before getting on the bus about a quarter of the way through "All That Rises Must Converge." Julian had just untied his tie to mock her, and she had responded by telling him he looked like a thug.
“True culture is in the mind, the mind,” he said, and tapped his head, “the mind.” “It’s in the heart,” she said, “and in how you do things and how you do things is because of who you are.” “Nobody in the damn bus cares who you are.” “I care who I am,” she said icily.”
-Flannery O’Connor, Everything That Rises Must Converge
True culture, I believe, exists in both our collective psyche, i.e. both mind and heart. The heart serves as intuition, and the mind serves as intelligence. We would never be able to really empathise with others if we are all intellect but no empathy.
Or if all we have is intuition and no intelligence, we will behave rashly with no concern for the effects of our decisions upon other.
Simply put, don't belittle yourself because you know a lot of things. And don't let your feelings make decisions for you.
The Essence of the Story
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Through Julian and his mother, O'Connor cautions us about the consequences of our own dual natures. Whether it's the dichotomy of religion and philosophy, conservatism and liberalism, or masculinity and femininity, a certain equilibrium is needed for all natures to grow and ultimately converge. In essence, two equal halves combine to form a whole.
The Bottom Line
Reading many of my peers' reactions to the stories and O'Connor herself was both profound and scary. Insightful because I was able to see things from various perspectives that I wouldn't even be able to see otherwise.
And it's frightening because some people dismiss an author and their work as racists without considering the place and time in which they were published.
My ratings for the Story - 4 on 5
Read the Story online - Everything That rises Must Converge
Get your copy of short stories poems from Amazon - Everything That rises Must Converge
Written By - Prakriti Chaudhary
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