From the days of John the Baptist
until now, the Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence, and the violent
bear it away. -Matthew 11:12
The
novelist with Christian concerns will find in modern life
distortions which are repugnant to him, and his problem will be to
make these appear as distortions to an audience which is used to
seeing them as natural; and he may well be forced to take ever more
violent means to get his vision across to this hostile audience…You
have to make your vision apparent by shock—to the hard of
hearing you shout, and for the almost-blind you draw large and
startling figures.”
—The
Fiction Writer and His Country
What
people don't realize is how much religion costs. They think faith is
a big electric blanket, when of course it is the cross. It is much
harder to believe than not to believe."
-"The
Habit of Being"
The novel opens with the recent death of the main character’s
great uncle, an Old Testament style patriarch who believed himself a
prophet in the tradition of John the Baptist. Upon his great uncle's
death, Tarwater rejects the prophetic mission his great uncle had
kidnapped and raised him for and heads to the city to live with his
uncle, George Rayber, who tries to wean the boy away from the
teachings of the great uncle. Through a series of actions Tarwater is
eventually driven back to the woods and an acceptance of God's plans.
O’Connor’s
works always illustrate the biblical adage that pride comes before a
fall (Proverbs
11:12) The
main character is increasingly portrayed as very proud. The action
begins with a catalyst, often a violent event or character. Then
pride causes the character to make a decision that leads directly to
that character's downfall. (source:
http://members.aol.com/hildegrd/oconnor/charts.html )
The
Violent Bear It Away is ultimately seen as a coming of age struggle
between good and evil. Rich with Christian symbolism, the Violent
Bear is Away has an unavoidable moral. Tarwater struggles between
good (as represented by his Uncle) and evil (As represented by
Rayber). In accordance with O’Connor’s theory that we
are all, in this life, handicapped in some way, each character has
physical, psychological, or mental deformities. The story ends when
Tarwater finds that though he can run from his uncle’s legacy
(i.e. Christ) he cannot run from the truth of it (i.e. he cannot
escape Christ).
he
Violent Bear it Away