Region, Idolatry, and Catholic Irony: Flannery O’Connor’s Modest Literary Vision

Logos: A Journal of Catholic Thought and Culture, Volume 5.1 -- Winter 2002

Preface

This issue opens with a stimulating essay by Robert Jackson on Flannery O’Connor, titled “Region, Idolatry, and Catholic Irony: Flannery O’Connor’s Modest Literary Vision.” Exploring O’Connor’s view of herself as a Southern writer, Jackson shows how the minority status of O’Connor’s Catholic faith in the largely Protestant South shapes her literary presentation of spiritual action. Jackson looks closely at O’Connor’s story, “Parker’s Back,” and examines O’Connor’s literary relationship to fellow Southerner William Faulkner in an essay that integrates O’Connor’s religious perspective with her regional identity and literary style, resulting in a vivid account of what Jackson calls O’Connor’s “modest literary vision.”