Stalking Joy: Flannery O’Connor and the Dangerous Quest

A central theme in Flannery O’Connors personal life as a believer and in her life as a writer was the theme of “stalking joy” throughout the “dangerous quest” for salvation. The concept was taken immediately from one of her favorite prayers, the “Prayer to St. Raphael.” This article focuses on how the concepts of “stalking joy” and the “dangerous quest” informed both O’Connors life and her fiction. It charts O’Connor’s development of this theme in her personal life and her letters, particularly showing how she manifested them in her charitable and loving relationship with others. Using St. Thomas Aquinas and Jacques Maritain, the article explains some theological and philosophical groundings for O’Connor’s theme of “stalking joy.” Finally, it analyzes how O’Connor developed this theme, often ironically, in several of her stories and both novels.