Flannery O'Connor, Hermit Novelist

7. Vision and Vice

7 Vision and Vice This is the man whose very life is a lie: he is not a simple but a two-faced man; he is one thing on the inside and another on the outside. -Dorotheos of Gaza, Discourses and Sayings And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. -2 Corinthians 11:14 Be a stranger to the desire for domination, vain-glory, and pride. -Theodora, The Sayings of the Desert Fathers THREE STORIES IN Everything That Rises Must Converge involve characters who see themselves as virtuous in their concern for the welfare of others. By their lights, these upstanding persons are generous in expressing their noble spirit through both emotional and material favors . Such charity is the basis of their dignity and superiority over others . In "A View of the Woods," the patriarch Mark Fortune derives satisfaction from allowing his daughter's family to live on his property in the Georgia hinterland. Mr. Fortune is especially fond of his granddaughter, Mary Fortune Pitts, who receives small daily tokens of his affection and the ultimate gift of being named heir to the entire place. The concern for others in "The Lame Shall Enter First" goes beyond family. Sheppard, an urban recreational director, is a single parent who is not only responsible for his son of ten but in his spare time gives himself over to helping boys at the local reformatory. Sharing his time and energy with juvenile 2°4 Vision and Vice 205 offenders bathes Sheppard in the hue of irreproachable self-contentment. Ruby Turpin, the landowner in "Revelation," has a less activist understanding of her benevolence, but her view of her disposition is not less flattering. Ruby's philosophy is never to spare herself when finding someone in need. Readiness to help others justifies her salvation, about which Ruby is as sure as she is convinced of her magnanimity. But the human will be human, and virtuous habits are hard to sustain or acquire if one rests in congratulation rather than struggles in examination of fixed attitudes and actions. In fact, the virtue that served the desert teachers as the vigilant corrective for all the other virtues was a healthy skepticism about one's goodness. That"one" practice for Abba Poemen is "for a man to blame himself" (Sayings, Poemen 134 [186]). "Self-accusation" about keeping the commandments checks the risk of being what Dorotheos of Gaza calls a "falsifier." For Dorotheos, one can be a liar not only in thought and in word but also "in one's very life." Whether one thinks, speaks, or lives the falsehood, the common motive is the person's "not wanting to acquire the virtue he praises" (9 [161]). If pretext is the conscious or even unconscious intention, then the virtues are a reproach to the falsifier. The three stories discussed in this chapter submit O'Connor's claimants to goodness to the test by means of demonic attacks on the precise virtues that express their spiritual desire. As in the Sayings and Lives, only through Satan's exacting challenge can O'Connor's protagonists see what truly drives them. In this contest, their self-will and aspiration come up against the law of unintended consequences, which brings each protagonist to a deserted spot or emotional wilderness. Here, the demons suddenly burst upon these solitaries and sound their hearts to expose the vice beneath their virtue. The shock of recognition demolishes the fabricated vision of themselves. And yet the broken icon offers healing in the form of a new integrity. Now the protagonists can see that to which they are called: not to a neighborliness and virtue according to their own image and likeness but to a shattering sacrifice that plunders whatever is not genuine love. The story of Mr. Fortune's largesse takes us directly into the territory held by the devil. The bucolic title"A View of the Woods" belies the unspeakable wickedness transpiring under the comely trees gracing the property . The panorama of these Georgia pines is so tied to the inhabitants' selfworth that they torment and kill for the prospect. Whereas murder is common in O'Connor's writing, the configuration of malevolent forces 206 Flannery O'Connor, Hermit Novelist in this story is shocking even for her. There are two killers, and they slay each other. There is also a third evildoer, a psychological killer who is every bit as murderous of the spirit as the two are of each...