Imagery in A View Of The Woods

“The old man looked up into his own image. It was triumphant and hostile. “You been whipped,” it said, “by me” and then it added, bearing down on each word, “and I’m PURE Pitts.” (545)

Filling this story with vivid imagery, O’Connor allows us to envision each event in our mind as if we were a part of it.  From the very beginning, we are told of Mr. Fortune’s “battered mulberry-colored Cadillac, the red corrugated lake, and the black line of woods which appeared at both ends of the view to walk across the water and continue along the edge of the fields.” (525). But perhaps the most important sight in this story is how Mr. Fortune views his granddaughter, Mary Fortune. Despite the seventy years that separates them in age, Mr. Fortune is convinced that Mary is his splitting image both inside and out and most importantly to him, he believes they are similar in the way they think. “He had seen that even at the age of one day she bore his unmistakable likeness.” (527).

As Mary begins to turn against her grandfather, we can also see that the imagery in the story begins to turn darker. Mr. Fortune began to have hallucinations of someone being wounded behind the woods and the trees were bathing in blood.  He awoke to an empty room, one that was unfamiliar to him because Mary had always been there to great him in the morning, perhaps symbolizing that as his granddaughter started to drift away from his life, he himself became empty and had nothing else to live for. Before the brawl between the two, we are brought into a scene that is threatened with a storm brewing, helping set the mood for something gloomy to follow.

I felt that the quote I provided was the most important image in O’Connor’s work. I feel that he was looking into a mirror image, needing to beat out the Pitts that had entered his body and go back to seeing the world the "Fortune way". He had allowed his own greed to somehow get the best of him.  By using the word "it" when he sees Mary over him, we can tell that he is no longer looking into the eyes of the granddaughter that he has loved since day one, but instead I believe that he sees a problem within himself that he must fix, sacrificing his granddaughter for his own greed and pride.


Discussion Question: How does Mr. Fortune resemble Mr. Pitts throughout the story? Is imagery truly effective in helping reflect the twists and turns as they happen?

A View of the Woods

"No one was particularly glad that Mary Fortune looked like her grandfather except for the old man himself. He thought it added greatly to her attractiveness. He thought she was the smartest and prettiest child he had ever seen and he let the rest of them known that if, IF that was, he left anything to anybody, it would be Mary Fortune he left it to" (O'Connor 526).

At the beginning of the story the likeness between Mr. Fortune and Mary Fortune is pointed out several times. Mr. Fortune allows the Pitts to couple his name with her's because he see's his features in her the day she was born. He plans to leave her everything because he is sure that she is the only one like him feature wise and has more intelligence than the others so she can control them. He has so much trust in the little girl.

As a reader though I didn't trust Mary Fortune. She's stubborn and secretive, telling Mr. Fortune 'don't be buttin into my business' when supposedly she is closest to him. Her actions and the way Mr. Fortune described her never added up, so when she goes a bit psycho it did not surprise me. Yet, it surprised Mr. Fortune.

So, my question is: Why did Fortune put such blinding faith in a child because she looked like him? What does this say about the physical connection between people?  

A View Of The Woods

Mary Fortune is the bastard child of two polar and competing drives: the desire for material progress and modernization and the tendency to stagnate in tradition and principle. Mary Fortune mediates these two drives; she is neither all Fortune or all Pitts, although old man Fortune "liked to think of her as being thoroughly of his clay (528)."Fortune refuses to acknowledge the impurity of influence which has come to shape Mary Fortune's own belief system; he sees in her only a semblance of himself, and thus denies her complexity.

Fortune sees the no inherent value in the world and its inhabitants; he assigns value to objects or persons according to their potential utility: "He didn't have any use for her mother, his third or fourth daughter (he could never remember which), though she considered that she took care of him (526)."Mary Fortune "was the only member of the family he had any respect for (526)"; this is only because he sees in her a tool for his own use: he has fashioned out of Mary Fortune his own legacy. He is protective of her because he sees her as the only guarantor of progress upon whom he can rely:"'I said don't walk so close to the edge,' he called; 'you fall off there and you won't live to see the day this place gets built up (529).'"

Old man Fortune scoffs his son-in-law Pitts' willingness to "let a cow pasture or a mule lot or a row of beans interfere with progress (528)." Fortune values innovation and progress: "He was not one of these old people who fight improvement [...] He wanted to see a paved highway in front of his house with plenty of new-model cars on it (527)." He assumes that Mary Fortune's fascination with the machines milling about the Fortune property denotes a similar dedication to material progress to which he himself is affixed; he projects his own ideology upon Mary Fortune: "The people like you and me with their heads on their shoulders can't stop the marcher time for a cow (528)." When he decides to sell "the lawn," however, he is confronted with Pitts' undeniable influence on Mary Fortune when she is not as delighted by the potential for progress as he had expected. Mary Fortune is now, like the rest of the Pitts, a barrier to Fortune progress; she wishes to maintain "the lawn" for the sake of having a place to play, being able to see the woods across the road, and having a spot for Pitts' cattle to graze, reasons inconceivable to old man Fortune as he sees no inherent value in them. When he looks at the woods, he sees just that, "not a mountain, not a waterfall, not any kind of planted bush or flower, just woods (538)."

Old man Fortune is jolted from complacency as he confronts the perversion of his only potential legacy; he awakes one morning to discover that she has come to "[prefer] the sight of the woods (539)" to him. He flails to regain her loyalty, but every offer he puts forth is refused: "'I ain't got nothing to do in no ten-cent store,' she said. 'I don't want no quarter of yours (540).'" He has lost all power to influence Mary Fortune with the sway of material goods and thus lost the ability to control his legacy; disempowered and enraged, he destroys he own desecrated image.

Religious Overtones in A View of the Woods

"Tilman was a man of quick action and few words. He sat habitually with his arms folded on the counter and his insignificant head weaving snake-fashion above them. He had a triangular-shaped face with the point at the bottom and the top of his skull was covered with a cap of freckles. His eyes were green and very narrow and his tongue was always exposed in his partly opened mouth. He had his checkbook handy and they got down to business at once. It did not take him long to look at the deed and sign the bill of sale. Then Mr. Fortune signed it and they grasped hands over the counter.

Mr. Fortune's sense of relief as he grasped Tilman's hand was extreme. What was done, he felt, was done and there could be no more argument, with her or with himself. He felt that he had acted on principle and that the future was assured." (O'Connor 542)

Flannery O'Connor's short stories frequently employ the use of religious imagery, specifically Judeo-Christian, to help convey her messages. Here, O'Connor describes the conniving Tilman as a character so blatantly snake-like that it seems comical that any character would trust him in a high level business transaction. The arrangement between Mr. Fortune and Tilman clearly invokes imagery of the Fall of Man. Mr. Fortune's willingly arrogant sale of the Pitts' grazing land visibly parallels the transaction between the Serpent and Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. As Mr. Fortune signs over the land, O'Connor curiously includes the line, "He felt that he had acted on principle and that the future was assured" (542). By including the word 'felt,' O'Connor seems to editorialize the description of the deal by subtly implying that Mr. Fortunes future is heading towards its tragic end. But the story is not wholly synchronous with the story of the Fall. This brief passage serves to highlight the seemingly irredeemable actions of Mr. Fortune in light of the Pitts' plight. O'Connor equates Mr. Fortune's actions with the most profound wrongness she can invoke through her Christian faith. This damning comparison casts Mr. Fortune's decisions in a completely scathing light and begs the question of whether or not his actions are redeemable.

Discussion Question: O'Connor often struggles with themes of redemption, in light of her comparison in this passage and his tragic end, does O'Connor's worldview allow for a person like Mr. Fortune to be redeemed?

Displaced Person

"Christ was just another D.P." 89

I really enjoyed O'Connor's writing style. The topics are heavy, but she sprinkles in moments of dark humor. Anyway I guess it was just my turn to do some gushing. Religious symbolism plays an important role in O'Connor's story, this is apparent from the first sentence. The peacock that follows Mrs. Shortley around at the beginning seems to represent religion. Throughout the story the only two characters who care or respect the Peacock are Astor and the Priest. While Mrs. McIntyre simply lets the peacocks starve and die out. The peacock helps illuminate the conflict or alliance these characters have with religion and the church.

 Another interesting religious symbol can be found in the "displaced person." When Mr. Guizac first begins his work on the farm Mrs. McIntyre exclaims that he is her savior! He seems to be a Christ-like symbol, working without complaint, and harming no one. Even when Mrs. McIntyre wishes to fire Mr. Guizac she tells the priest that Christ was a D.P. as well. Thinking of Christ as a displaced person allows him to bridge racial borders, because at some point in the story all of the characters are displaced people.
What religious symbols stuck out to you? And how do you think they shaped the story?

Immigrant Labor And The Southern Economy

"All you colored people better look out," She said. "You know how much you can get for a mule."
"Nothing, no indeed," the old man said, "not one thing."
"Before it was a tractor, she said, "it could be a mule. And before it was a Displaced Person, it could be a nigger."
The old man laughed politely. "Yes indeed," he said. "Ha ha."

The Displaced Person describes the advent of a third contender in the power struggle between blacks and poor whites in the labor market of the American South. The Southern labor market had been, up until this point, comprised of blacks and poor whites. The Southern economy could even be said to have been stagnated by the tension between these two parties: poor whites assumed an intrinsic racial advantage over blacks which would guarantee them their presumed position on the social hierarchy, while blacks relied on their reputation as cheap, hard workers to maintain their own position. The inception of a zealous and skillful European workforce in the wake of World War II offered, on the one hand, a chance for innovation and progress, and, on the other hand, threatened to displace both parties which constituted the Southern labor market.

When the hard-working Guizac family first arrives on the McIntyre farm, Mrs. Shortley, one such poor, white farm laborer, posits in the above passage that the "colored people," Astor and Sulk,will be the first to go. She ignores her own vulnerability to competition, assuming the precedence of a non-existant intra-racial loyalty over modern business rationality. She cannot possibly imagine that she belongs in the group of "sorry people," "poor white trash," that she overhears Mrs. McIntyre talking about: "Mrs. Shortley could listen to this with composure because she knew that if Mrs. McIntyre had considered her trash, they couldn't have talked about trashy people together" (293). Astor, however, is wise to the workings of a competitive workforce dominated by principles of cost efficiency; his simple, scathing reply to Mrs. Shortley implies a knowledge of what is to come, that is, that the Shortleys will be the first to go. I think that Astor's predictions are informed by his knowledge of how the struggle between blacks and poor white southerners came to be; this was not the first time poor white southerners would be displaced by a new, competitive labor market. There is indeed a "displaced person" in the struggle, and it is not the Guizacs.

Why does Mrs. McIntyre eventually reverse her decision of ousting the Shortleys in favor of the Guizacs? Is she too somehow threatened by the influx of immigrant labor?

The Race Bird...?

"The peacock stopped just behind her, his tail-glittering green-gold and blue in the sunlight-lifted just enough so that it would not touch the ground." (285)

To me, the peacock is the most striking symbol in Flannery O'Connor's "The Displaced Person."  The setting of this story is filled to the brim with racism, and here is a bird that symbolizes the racial environment of this story.

The peacock is a magnificent, beautiful bird consisting of many different colors fitting together in perfect harmony.  The 'harmonious existence of these colors on the feathers of this bird strongly contrastts with the existence of the many different races in the Southern locale of this story.  Mrs. Shortley shows animosity toward the new Polish help, her husband eventually harbors the same hatred, and Mrs. McIntyre shows hatred towards all of these different races.  There seems to be no mercy from any side in this environment.

According to Mrs. McIntyre, peacocks used to be prosperous on her property, but she let them die out and now there is only one left.  This state of peacock existence on this property represents the state of race relations in the South.  All the peacocks meant all of these different colors running around, sticking together.  Now, however, there is only one left.  Racial harmony is a thing of the past, and it may soon become nonexistent whatsoever.  This peacock represents a society on the verge of total race relation chaos. Throughout the story, it stays to the side of all the action, frequently mentioned in passing. But, at the end, when Flannery O'Connor delivers her usual devastating, dark ending and Mr. Guitar dies, and everything descends into chaos, the peacock is not mentioned again. In readers' minds, it is dead. So, too, have race relations become totally hostile at the end of this story, that any illusion of harmony has completely disappeared.

Discussion question: Do you believe that race relations could ever recover in such a hostile place? Clearly, this story is fiction and things have progressed in the real world. But in this fictional world, created by Flannery O'Connor, do you believe that the tensions present could ever subside?

"'She in camp three year,' he said.
'Your cousin,' she said in a positive voice, 'cannot come out here and marry one of my Negroes'" (314)

The story is rife with racism directed at nearly every character by Mrs. McIntyre. This moment struck me as interesting because it presented a predicament that I assume very few people in the south had to deal with. Reading literature of the American South, I've become used to the dividing line between blacks and whites and this sentence made me sit up and take notice but it also got me thinking.

What does this moment truly say about the racist attitudes of the characters? More importantly, what does it say about the moral attitudes of the characters? Mrs. McIntyre is not ignorant of the situation in Europe and the existence of concentration camps. If Mrs. Shortley was aware of them, it can be safely assumed that Mrs. McIntyre did as well. While it may be understandable that she rejected the notion of an interracial marriage, given the time period, the thing that struck me was that it didn't seem to really bother her that someone's life was on the line and this made me dislike her. Despite knowing his situation, she never fully accepts him either - always referring to him as the 'Displaced Person' or 'DP'.
 What also surprised me, later on, was the attitude of Astor towards the Guizacs. As a person who, presumably, had to deal with intolerance and oppression his entire life, Astor seems remarkably callous towards the Guizacs. We later find out that it's because he makes them work too hard, but I would have expected Astor to empathise with Mr. Guizac.

Question: why do you think Astor played such a role in getting rid of the Guizacs? What does this say about attitudes towards racism?