Flannery O’Connor’s Vision of Grace

Dr. Jennifer Frey (associate professor of philosophy at the University of South Carolina and host of the literature, philosophy, and theology podcast, Sacred and Profane Love), explores the fiction of mid twentieth century Catholic writer, Flannery O’Connor in a 6-part series.

In this salon, we will explore and discuss how O’Connor understands the action of grace in her fiction, with particular emphasis on how grace is related to vision, and how the concept of vision operates in both her theological worldview and her fiction.  In addition to drawing on her stories and letters, we will draw upon her main theological source, the writings of St. Thomas Aquinas.  O’Connor had the habit of reading Aquinas every evening, because she thought “it made my writing bolder” and she called herself a “Hillbilly Thomist”, and we cannot really understand her fiction apart from the theological commitments that animate it.

Main Reading: “Good Country People”
Recommended Reading: “Novelist and Believer”

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