AnOverviewofO

王肖翔

【Abstract】Flannery O'Connor （1925-1964），is one of the most famous writers and critics of American southern renaissance.She spent most of the her time in her hometown，Georgia，Savannah.Almost all her works use Georgia and East Tennessee as the background of creation.The language of O'Conner's works is ironic and humorous，it deeply pointed to the heart of human nature.The charm of O'Conner's novel lies in its reverse with many popular culture and literature.This essay will briefly discuss O'Connors literary creation and reviews home and abroad.

【Key Words】O'Connor； introduction； literary review

Flannery O'Connor is an outstanding female writer，her influence on literature has crossed the Southern border to the whole United States，and even covering many countries in the world.Her unique writing style has attracted the attention of readers and critics.Since western （mainly the United States） literary critics own the natural advantages，the geographical and historical sources，their research and criticism on O'Conner's works developed more mature，comprehensive and in-depth.While for many Chinese readers，O'Connor perhaps is not a familiar name.There are not only lack of the cultural background research about O'Connor but also short of the research of other aspects.To some disappointing degree，Chinese studies and criticism on her and her works are comparatively less systematic and insufficient.

However，studies from the cutural perspective，to interragetes the fictions of O'Connor was few and far between.So far，there are no monographs abroad conducted from the angle of cutural studies.Researches related this theme are as following.One paper written by Robert Coles analyzed the religious meaning of how O'Connor's works embodied and drew from Southern culture.Robert Coles's writing enriches our appreciation of this remarkable writer and her milieu.Another paper explored the close relationship between society and religion written by Ralph C.Wood in “Flannery O'Connor and the Christ-Haunted South” （2004）.In the 1950s cultural circumstance of O'Connor's work，the reality of social secularization fit the demands of the emerging consensus in religion.There's another related comparative study of O'Conner and other writers of the same period was written by Louise Westling named “Sacred Grovesand Ravaged novel Gardens： The Fiction of Eudora Welty，Carson McCullers，and Flannery O'Connor” （1985）.The author put O'Conner and other two Southern female writer in the same cultural context to compare their different theme and style.On the one hand，the book shows the charm and the importance of Southern literature，on the other hand，it summed up the unique style of O'Conner's reflecion to the Southern cultural tradition.During O'Conner's creation period （1946-1964），the Civil Rights movement and the Feminist movement rise up and downs.In this eventful history period of America，O'Conner wrote about race problems.Under the cultural research，it cannot be ignored.In China，Yang Jiping （2007，2008，2010） comment on the international feminist review of O'Connor's work.The author explains that O'Connor gave her rebellious female character a tragic fate is applying God's punishment for these women.I hold opposite opinions for this review.O'Connor had claimed that art is not only a world for male，however，many critics still believe that O'Connor internalized male privilege in her works from the feminist interpretation，because she subverts the traditional theology image of father God and South Amereica traditional Father God's image.For God is became a “The Displaced Person”，it won't help even if women are habitually depend on God which only can lead them lost their right again.Pin Tan discussed Welty，McCuller and O'Conner in his doctoral dissertation （2010） about the construction of female identity.The author mentioned that O'Conner was aware of the predicament of southern women in their families for they bare the burden of violence，racism and class differentiation.He thought that the awakening of female consciousness is the key to realize their identity's integrity.The study on the racial relations I agree with Shi Pingping （1998） whose main idea is that O'Connor's attitude to blacks is quite complexed.On one hand，O'Connor expressed her pity for the suffering of blacks.On the other hand，because of her own Catholic view of original sin and the Southern traditional influence made her an conservative political oppinions.Han Yang （2002） praised the way O'Connor tried to figure out the issue of racial contradictions in“Everything That Rises Must Converge”.Based on the above conclusion，it can be seen that these papers lack convergence between theory and the context，their conclusions not systematically reflected the cutural criticism.

Therefore，in the future study，we need comprehensively analyze from cultural perspective to interrogate the literary personae in O'Connors short stories.