Old South vs. New South in OConners Everything That Rises Must Conver

Old South vs. New South in OConners Everything That Rises must(prenominal)iness ConvergeFlannery OConnors Everything That Rises Must Converge depicts a stifling mother-son relationship in which the conflict is never resolved, or even acknowledged. This relationship is a parable which describes the transition from the Old South, with its inherent values used to justify slavery and segregation, to the New South, striving for justice based on equality. Mrs, Chestney (old South) and her son Julian (New South) represent, on an individual scale, the interactions of their corresponding constituencies, The world is a mess everywhere... I dont know how weve let it get in this mess, states Mrs, Chestney on the champaign of segregation, Unintentionally, she implicates her kind as the party responsible for the tension between Negroes sic. and Whites, She is saying, in effect, We dominated this race of people. Now it has become too difficult for us to maintain that control. Naturally, she fe els threatened. Josephine Hendin wrote that The desegregation of buses and the general rise of the Negro seem to her so much chaos, a chaos in which the old and the young, the present and the past, must violently collide. Blacks encroaching upon the power structure which is integral to her behavior lead forced her to either reassess her behavior, or substantiate it. She is an old woman, whose meat to life is reliant upon segregation, and she will, in every case, opt for the latter, In her confabulation with her son, Julian, she proudly refers to a great-grandfather who was a slave owner, the tragedy of half-whites, and, as cogent evidence for not riding integrated buses alone, a large Black passenger sitting adjacent to her, reading a newspaper. Her mani... ...s and is now yearning for a darky nurses care. Only then does Julian react to the circumstances, in a panic. He helplessly watches his mother die, and then realizes how dependent on her he truly is, As the Old South dies , the New South emerges. The descendant cannot sever the tie to its predecessor, nor ignore its effect on the next generation. As a society, our evolution to a point without racism may be a long process. Works CitedFeeley, Kathleen, Flannery OConnor Voice Of The Peacock. New Brunswick, New jersey Rutgers University Press, 1972. Hendin, Josephine. The World of Flannery OConnor. Bloomington, Indiana Indiana University Press, 1970. OConnor, Flannery. Everything That Rises Must Converge. New York The Noonday Press, 1956, Stephens, Martha. The foreland of Flannery OConnor. Baton Rouge Louisiana State University Press, 1973.