Literature has been a means of conveying messages for centuries. Various authors, from Aesop to Shakespeare, have used writing as a vehicle to convey a message to their audiences. All of these authors are widely respected and admired for their works. One author who transcends her peers and distances herself from traditional secular teaching is Flannery O'Connor. She is widely known for her use of Christian themes to convey a message about our world's need for a savior in Jesus Christ. His writing style is unique in that it conveys spiritual messages in everyday stories that are fun to read. This is important because it creates a medium through which he can intelligently spread the gospel. Picture Books stated, “Her masterly craftsmanship, her extraordinary capacity for characterization, the depth and intensity of her morality, combined in rigorous discipline, make her one of the most respected authors of this generation” (Books, Picture 1). Flannery O'Connor uses various themes to convey a religious message, but the two that have the greatest impact are grace and suffering. The themes of grace and suffering can be seen in his short stories, “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” “The River,” and “The Lame Shall Come in First.” The themes of grace and suffering in Flannery O'Connor's stories are used to represent Jesus Christ dying on the cross for our sins. Mary Flannery O'Connor was born on March 25, 1925 in Savannah Georgia to Roman Catholic parents. O'Connor displayed a strange sense of the world from a young age. This strange attitude later proved to be a central figure in his stories. In an interview in which O'Connor was discussing his early childhood quirk, he exclaimed, "[I] preferred those [chickens] with one green eye and one orange eye... I wanted... the center of the paper... " of what he did. “He had ignored his son to fuel his vision of himself. He saw the clear-eyed Devil... looking at him through Johnson's eyes. His image of himself withered until all was black before him” (O’Connor 190). O'Connor used Sheppard as a representation of the man. Norton's suffering caused Sheppard to reexamine his spiritual beliefs. If Norton had not suffered for Sheppard, then Sheppard would not have reexamined his walk with God. O'Connor used Norton's suffering to represent Jesus Christ suffering for man so that we do not have to live in eternal punishment. Both Norton and Rufus were in Sheppard's life as "an instrument for suffering," so that Sheppard could fully realize his sins and repent. (McMullen 114). O'Connor saw the importance of Jesus' suffering over Christ for man. He understood that through the death of Jesus we have grace.
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