Julian's Problem in Flannery O'Connor's Everything that Rises Must Converge

As with all of Flannery O'Connor's work, there is a religious undertone or overtone perhaps. "Everything That Rises Must Converge" is a story about Julian and his mother; his mother is old-fashioned, and he is "liberal" and "superior." In "Everything That Rises Must Converge," Julian's mother is clearly racist, bought up in the old ways, and dedicated to proving to herself and everyone else that she has status and is well bred. Julian, on the other hand, is not racist as a product of the Civil Rights Movement. However, Julian condemns his mother for her views and never looks inside himself to understand what kind of person he really is. This is why he will suffer deeply in the "world of guilt and sorrow." While defending people of other races and "loving" them, Julian has forgotten to love his own mother.

The narrator tells the reader right away that Julian is completely detached from his own mother. With statements like, "Everything that gave her pleasure was small and depressed him," (O'Connor) it is clear that there is no love lost. He numbs himself to everything about her, and sees himself as a saint because he is accompanying her on the bus. He tells the reader that he has turned out well in spite of her, not because of her.

"In spite of her, he had turned out so well. In spite of going to a third-rate college, he had, on his own initiative, come out with a first-rate education; in spite of growing up dominated by a small mind, he had ended up with a large one; in spite of all her foolish views, he was free of prejudice and unafraid to face facts. Most miraculous of all, instead of being blinded by love for her as she was for him, he had cut himself emotionally free of her and could see her with complete objectivity" (O'Connor).

He is smug and superior. He wants to teach her a lesson about life-that the world has changed and she doesn't know who she is anymore as she claims. He wants to expose her ignorance and blindness but ends up exposing his own as well. "He wants his mother to learn a lesson about her true place in the world and about the new respect due to the Negroes. The intellectually satisfying yet brutal way in which it is delivered kills her" (Griffith). Julian's mother is certainly racist, and she believes the world is "in a mess everywhere." The status of minorities has converged, she believes, too much. However, she is his mother. She has sacrificed for him as evidenced in "her teeth had gone unfilled so that his could be straightened." Her world revolves around him, and she loves him unconditionally despite her faults.

He actually feels malice toward her. When he realizes that the Negro on the bus has the same ugly hat that she does, he is oddly smug. He wants to use this to teach her a lesson. When she further embarrasses him by trying to give a penny to the Negro's son, it almost pleases him to be mean to her. He lectures her and does not see the signals that her health is failing, so that finally as she falls to the ground, she finds "nothing familiar" about him. Symbolically now, he is thrust into the real world. He must work for a living rather than live off his mother. He must find a place to live, etc. He failed at loving her and appreciating her no matter who she was and now will suffer the "world of guilt and sorrow" (O'Connor).

Had Julian been able to love his mother, he might have changed her slowly that way. While Julian looks down on his mother, he is as bad as she is with her prejudices. He wants to talk about how we should love and respect all people regardless of race, but he is unable to love his own mother. He is a hypocrite and has become detached from the world and religion; Julian is most of us.

At the end of the story, it is clear that Julian will suffer. He is now an orphan with no one to love despite his "superior" intellect. Flannery O'Connor points out the hypocrisy of religion in the modern era because most of us have drifted away from the conventional Christian values, such as unconditional love of our fellow human beings. What we need to remember as a people is love. As shown with Julian, we must love ourselves and those around us first. Judging others is not a Christian value. The only way people truly change what is in hearts is through love. Julian cannot undo what has been done, and now he will suffer the guilt and sorrow of his momentous sin. As he breaks down in fear like a child at the end, he must now face the world alone as an adult. He had no problem taking money or a place to live from his mother, even though he condemns her at every opportunity. Julian represents the sinfulness and hypocrisy of humanity.

Works Cited

Griffith, Benjamin, After the Canonization: Flannery O'Connor Revisited. The Sewanee

Review. 1989. 576-578.

O'Connor, Flannery, "Everything That Rises Must Converge." Retrieved January 23,

2007 at Web Site:

http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:lVbFfri75zUJ:www.barksdale.latech.edu/E

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