전복의 미학 : 오코너 소설과 독자

Aesthetics of Disruption : Flannery O"Connor"s Novels and Her Readers

  Flannery O"Connor clearly points out that the novelist with Christian concerns finds in modern life distortions which are repugnant to him/her and that his/her problem will be to make these appear as distortions to an audience who are used to seeing them as natural. O"Connor"s remarks become particularly meaningful when we, as readers confront with her confusing novels and find what had been taken for granted as a common sense, predictable on rational principles is totally disrupted. In short, through her novels, readers are forced to look into the inarticulate foundation of Mystery. Many critics touched upon O"Connor"s statement of her role as a Christian writer, but they failed to stretch their contention in terms of her readers. In other words, they have failed to examining fully how O"Connor not only criticise automatic conventional thinking in her characters but also, more importantly, turns her keen concern upon her readers. This paper is an attempt to trace how O"Connor force not just her characters but her readers into a disrupting intellectual and spiritual crisis.