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Flannery O'Connor's prepubescents: Two on a pedestal

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Date Issued:
1996
Summary:
Flannery O'Connor wrote two stories about antisocial twelve-year-old girls, who live in fractured households where they have little contact with males. In "Temple of the Holy Ghost," the unnamed child is comfortable in her perceived intellectual superiority and allows her imagination to keep her on a cerebral pedestal. The angry Sally Virginia in "A Circle in the Fire" takes refuge in a second-floor window, but later descends for a physical confrontation with three boys threatening the secure world run by her tyrannical mother. Both girls gain spiritual knowledge: the "Temple" child comes to recognize the sanctity of the female body, while Sally Virginia discovers the familial misery inherent in all people. But Sally Virginia includes both males and females in her understanding of human suffering, while the "Temple" child remains spiritually flawed because of a smugness that equates only females with purity.
Title: Flannery O'Connor's prepubescents: Two on a pedestal.
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Name(s): Thompson, Joan Elaine.
Florida Atlantic University, Degree grantor
Pearce, Howard D., Thesis advisor
Type of Resource: text
Genre: Electronic Thesis Or Dissertation
Issuance: monographic
Date Issued: 1996
Publisher: Florida Atlantic University
Place of Publication: Boca Raton, Fla.
Physical Form: application/pdf
Extent: 66 p.
Language(s): English
Summary: Flannery O'Connor wrote two stories about antisocial twelve-year-old girls, who live in fractured households where they have little contact with males. In "Temple of the Holy Ghost," the unnamed child is comfortable in her perceived intellectual superiority and allows her imagination to keep her on a cerebral pedestal. The angry Sally Virginia in "A Circle in the Fire" takes refuge in a second-floor window, but later descends for a physical confrontation with three boys threatening the secure world run by her tyrannical mother. Both girls gain spiritual knowledge: the "Temple" child comes to recognize the sanctity of the female body, while Sally Virginia discovers the familial misery inherent in all people. But Sally Virginia includes both males and females in her understanding of human suffering, while the "Temple" child remains spiritually flawed because of a smugness that equates only females with purity.
Identifier: 15259 (digitool), FADT15259 (IID), fau:12030 (fedora)
Collection: FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection
Note(s): Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters
Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 1996.
Subject(s): O'Connor, Flannery--Criticism and interpretation
Children in literature
Held by: Florida Atlantic University Libraries
Persistent Link to This Record: http://purl.flvc.org/fcla/dt/15259
Sublocation: Digital Library
Use and Reproduction: Copyright © is held by the author, with permission granted to Florida Atlantic University to digitize, archive and distribute this item for non-profit research and educational purposes. Any reuse of this item in excess of fair use or other copyright exemptions requires permission of the copyright holder.
Use and Reproduction: http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Host Institution: FAU
Is Part of Series: Florida Atlantic University Digital Library Collections.