This new assessment of a major southern writer's work offers a
revisionist view of her characters, who in the past twenty-five years of
critical attention too often and too easily have been labeled grotesque.
O'Connor's stories and novels are usually considered mere dramatizations
of her stated orthodox religious commitments. According to the
predominant view, the typical O'Connor work consists of a set of corrupt
characters and an authoritative narrator who analyzes their theological
errors. When redemption occurs, according to this view, it results from
forces outside the character and against that character's will.
Although such a reading adequately describes a few works, it
misunderstands O'Connor's general handling of narration and of
characterization. Marshall Bruce Gentry proposes new positions on
O'Connor's narration and on the role of the grotesque in her
characterization. By investigating the nature of religious experience in
her works, he concludes that O'Connor's primar