Flannery O'Connor's "The Geranium"

"The Geranium," a short story by Flannery O'Connor,  is about an old man (Old Dudley) who has moved to New York City, at the request and perceived duty of his daughter, "She was doing her duty. She had brothers and sisters who were not"(6). The family is from the South and Dudley still holds onto his Southern ideals and prejudices.  

Old Dudley is a dislocated elderly gentleman. He reflects upon his past life in the back hills of the South along the riverbanks of Georgia and contrasts these memories with his observations of the bustle and rush of the city. He finds himself no longer exploring or acting as the man of the house but rather he feels he is a pest and in the way. “The next week he had become more conscious of the daughter and son-in-law and their boy – no place to be out of their way” (6). He believes that his daughter feels obligated to occupy his time or create conversation with him, but he would rather she didn't because it causes him to remember the life he left behind. When Dudley is reflecting on the geranium, he remembers how Lutish would have been able to make anything take root and “his throat was drawn taut. There wasn't much he could think of to think about that didn't do his throat that way” (3). He instead spends his time acting occupied as he waits on the geranium that sits across the alley.

 This geranium acts as a physical representation of Old Dudley. The sad state that the flower is in offers a parallel to Dudley's own state. “The geranium didn’t look like a flower. It looked like the sick Grisy boy at home and it was the color of the drapes the old ladies has in the parlor and the paper bow on it looked like the one behind Lutish’s uniform she wore on Sundays” (9). When Dudley is struggling to ascend the stairs he is described as having “to take it more slowly. It tired him going up. Everything tired him, looked like” (11).  Furthermore, the aging flower provides a window to his past and is a symbol of the frailness of life. At the end of story, when the flower has fallen six stories down one can connect the fall to the fall of power that Dudley takes. One can also associate the number of stories as being the same as the number of feet down one is buried.

There is a power shift from Dudley to other characters. The new black neighbor acts as though Dudley is incapable and in need of help this is in direct conflict with how Dudley used to be treated by Rabie and Lutish, who treated him with respect and in a power of control. This shift of power is first presented when Dudley is pretending to hunt along the stairs and then sits to rest only to be helped up by the new neighbor helps him back to his daughter’s apartment. This idea of a power shift is made clear when Dudley is unable to make eye contact with the neighbor, “Old Dudley shook his head, looking at the door. He hasn’t looked at the nigger yet. All the way up the stairs, he hadn’t looked at the nigger” (13).

 O'Connor chooses to tell this story in a limited 3^rd person narration. The audience is only able to see the characters' actions. Dudley's thoughts are never directly offered, but rather are commented upon through the narration. All inner dialogs in the story are spoken or implied. O'Connor makes a point of personifying the verbal communications, giving a vivid word picture; for example, the exit of Dudley's daughter after her attempt at forcing herself to hold a conversation with her father. "She moved out of the room, leaving an audible sigh, to crawl over him and remind him again of that one minute--that wasn't her fault at all--when suddenly he had wanted to go to New York to live with her" (4). Here the reader is able to hear the action, and then watch it as the sigh crawls over Dudley. O'Connor's writing is very concise in that she knows the effect of each word she chooses and fills each sentence with the emotions of the characters to facilitate the story through internal development as well as through characters' actions. The story is not driven by the plot but instead by the characters' journey and growth through the story.

As a reader, I had trouble accepting that Dudley would rather sit in his chair where he feels unwanted and alone, without even his ill geranium to gaze upon bring him joy, then to risk seeing the black neighbor again because he might try and help Dudley or worse touch him. I understand that Dudley's character was developed by O'Connor to hold these racial boundaries but I can't help but to wonder how the story would be different if Dudley were the black man and the neighbor white. I am interested to see this story from the reverse race perspectives. To work through his conflicting power reversals and find a place of acceptance for Dudley I continually reminded myself that this story was writing about a time where racial lines were things that one did not question or break. Because I have never had experience with racial prejudices I find them difficult to understand but open mindedness is just as important at understanding differences as it is in accepting them.

 Looking at this text with the theoretical approach of Peter Barry’s five summary points of critical theory, “Politics is pervasive, Language is constitutive, Truth is provisional, Meaning is contingent, and Human nature is a myth” (35). These points have led me to believe that this text proves an example of conflicts and contrasts. O'Connor holds the politics of segregation and racial prejudices as being pervasive, yet she still explores how they act to isolate an old man from other community members with whom he might be able to have the camaraderie that he is lacking and missing from his home in the South. Her use of language is concise and pointed so as to portray her meaning without the need for excessive flowery phrases. The concept of self is explored in the character of Old Dudley because of his need to feel as though he has maintain his old identity of the southern country man and feels lost and useless  at discovering his new self of elderly age and the city. O'Connor does not just tell the audience what her point is, or about the situation that Old Dudley finds himself in instead she shows the reader through her descriptive language.

Discussion Questions:

1.      How would the story be changed if Dudley were black and the neighbor white?

2.      What myths of human nature are present in O'Connor's story?

3.      Aside from race, what themes are prevalent in this text?

4.      What role does the daughter play in her father's isolation? Is she to blame? What do her intentions count for?

5.      If this story were to be rewritten in today's context, what would be the conflict?

Continued Lessons from MLK

During this weekend's MLK events I partook in the Reading by Dana Johnson and the Community Talk Back with Wilbert Smith, producer of “A Hole in the Head.” I did not have the opportunity to watch the film before attending the talk back, but I don't feel as though this has limited my experience at all. Speaking of the readings first: Johnson read a section from her book of short stories that chronicles a young African American girl as she moves from the inner-city to the suburbs and explores her journey growing up in that divided culture. The passage Johnson shared was about the main character's outing to a Dodgers game with her father, best friend, cousin and crush. Along the way the family's car breaks down on the side of the highway; they are then found and picked up by a middle aged white man with his daughter. This passage speaks to the theme of community among Dodger fans and expands that to include all people.

Johnson writes into a genre of multiculturalism allowing readers from all backgrounds to enjoy and appreciate her stories. She has a good concept of character voice and that allows her to effectively switch from an older character to a younger character. I have not had a great deal of exposure to the western culture that she was writing about, so that was interesting. I also have not had a great deal of experience with racial differences; by adding the African American dialect and Latin American references, Johnson opened a new door for me. I found the reading to be culturally educating. The novel could be a useful tool when I begin teaching. It could help me understand the mentality of students who have recently moved, as well as those from California. It would also be an interesting book to teach because it shows multiple cultures in one area, and several perspectives on those cultures and unifies the character and the reader through human experience.

The second event I attended was a talk back event for students, staff and community members in the Goshen area. The producer Wilbur Smith of the film, “A Hole in the Head” was the guest speaker. Smith commented on importance of finding these individual stories and creating a larger national narrative from them, a national narrative that reflects both the good and the bad of our nations history, as well as narratives from multiple different races and cultural backgrounds. His film is the story of a man who was the test subject of radiation testing. At age five he was subjected to radiation testing to get rid of scalp worm, however he was exposed to too much and was left with a hole in his scalp. He hid this from the public afraid of what others would say about him for 71 years until he told his story to Smith. I find this idea of a larger narrative particularly interesting. It could be a nice jumping point for a writing project.

Toward the end of the discussion, the theme of forgiveness came up. Comments were made about how the main character in the film never complained or blamed anyone for what had happened to him. This brought up the idea of faith and the concept that forgiveness is a transfer of power. Meaning that forgiveness acts as a transfer of power from the aggressor to the victim. I feel like the comments about the power of forgiveness would be an interesting topic to explore more, perhaps in a convocation session. Smith made the statement that you cannot be angry and have your heart be in the right place, and that statement has really stuck with me. The idea of power struggles and forgiveness could become a topic for a reflective writing piece, a larger group discussion, a debate or even just a spring board for a conversation about how you should treat others. It would also be possible to look at the theme of forgiveness in literature.

I would like to explore the idea of using film as a research project. I think that creating a documentary about an event or to create a community narrative would be a good way to incorporate interdisciplinary learning into the classroom. By creating a community's narrative, students would be participating in place-based learning about their local history as well as getting community members involved in the classroom.

I would say the MLK event weekend was a positive experience that allowed for personal growth and understanding and provided ideas for ways to incorporate things learned from these events into the classroom.