Blog #4

In Everything That Rises Must Converge, there are many vivid descriptions of random material objects. By helping the reader easily paint a picture of the scene in their minds, Flannery O'Connor succeeds in making it feel more like a painting than a short story. In particular, the description of the floppy, purple hat to draw attention to the hostility between Julian and his mother, as well as Julian's mother and the woman wearing the identical hat.

Using material objects as symbols and describing them thoroughly, must have been a welcome challenge to O'Connor. This descriptive art was most likely difficult to create. Pick the wrong objects, and the wrong picture would be painted in the reader's mind. The proper dress hat in a bright color spoke to the position of value which Julian's mother thought that she stood. Although the story used a fair amount of description, O'Connor still manages to leave much of the meaning up for interpretation, only adding to the creativity of the piece.