The Violent Bear It Away

In Flannery O'Connor's The Violent Bear It Away, a fourteen-year-old boy named Francis Marion Tarwater is the protagonist who denies Christ but finds redemption through a traumatic form of revelation. Tarwater is the great-nephew of Mason Tarwater, a religious fanatic who kidnapped Francis in order to baptize him, and who believes he is a prophet and Francis' destiny is to follow in his footsteps. The antagonist of the story is Rayber, Francis' uncle, who rejects religion and embraces a secular lifestyle. Rayber's son Bishop is mentally retarded and it was Mason's quest to baptize him, but his death prevented this mission, which now falls on Francis. Francis will reject religion and Mason's wish for burial because of his "friend," a voice in his head that represents secular (i.e. evil) thinking.

Ultimately, Francis will accept his destiny and baptize Bishop just before drowning him, which pits his religious fanaticism against Rayber's anti-religious secularism. As he returns home, Francis is raped by an older man who gives him a ride. It is after this trauma that he experiences redemption. O'Connor's view of redemption implies that both secularism and fundamentalism are aberrations of God's will, or a perversion of God's truth. When redemption comes, it is through some manner of traumatic revelation, wherein the individual's eyes are "burned clean" to the truth of God.[1] This analysis will discuss Flannery O'Connor's theo

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shop and Francis to a fishing lodge on a lake, hoping a return to the farm will make Francis give up his foolish religious notions. However, Francis' "friend" urges him to drown Bishop, but just before he does so successfully, Francis baptizes him. He refers to the baptism as an accident, because he maintains he killed Bishop only to show he is no prophet, "I'm in full charge there...I shouldn't never have left it except I had to prove I wasn't no prophet and I've proved it...I proved it by drowning him. Even if I did baptize him that was only an accident. Now all I have to do is mind my own bidnis until I die. I don't have to baptize or prophesy."[12] We also see that Francis argues he is not hungry and that he will not have to deal with any form of fiery revelation now that he has murdered. As he tells us with pride and self-centeredness, "It's not going to be any destruction or any fire...There are them that can act and them that can't, and them that are hungry and them that ain't. That's all. I can act. And I ain't hungry."[13] Francis will murder Bishop and be sodomized by the Devil just before his redemption. Rejecting Rayber's and the "friend's" rational teachings, Francis impulsively baptizes Bishop ju

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