“A View of the Woods,” completed by Flannery O’Connor in September 1956 as the third story in her second collection, Everything That Rises Must Converge, takes up the ecological implications of development and industrialization. Permanently living at Andalusia for five years, O’Connor began to notice, according to biographer Brad Gooch, “the encroachment of the modern world, as commercialism and industrialization transformed the landscape” (279). For instance, a telephone first appeared at Andalusia in the summer of 1956. A local power company built a dam on the nearby Oconee River, creating a 15,000-acre lake just north of Milledgeville. And the town had already allotted a large tract of land across Highway 441 to build a new housing subdivision. As Mrs. O’Connor continued to build up Andalusia as a dairy farm, one particular friend began to characterize her as “very oriented toward money making” (279). O’Connor, too, noticed expansive developments at Andalusia, such as Mrs. O’Connor’s decision to sell off some of their land for timber. As a result, O’Connor’s desire to convey potential concerns for modern development, commercialism, and industrialism influenced “A View of the Woods.” Partisan Review accepted the story for publication in its fall 1957 issue. Several collections later reprinted the story, including Prize Stories 1959: The O’Henry Awards and The Best American Short Stories of 1958.
While O’Connor evinces an ecocentric purpose for “A View of the Woods,” she still develops a religious theme carried out specifically by 79-year-old Mr. Fortune and his 9-year-old granddaughter, Mary Fortune Pitts. First, Mr. Fortune’s name, “Fortune,” immediately establishes his controlling, money-focused character, which later results in his downfall and death. He reflects that “he was not one of these old people who fight improvement, who object to everything new and cringe at every change” (“View,” 337), explaining his motivation for investing in development. However, his desire for advancement reaches the extreme when “he thought [an eventual town] should be called Fortune, Georgia. He was a man of advanced vision, even if he was seventy-nine years old” (338). In the midst of his obsession over advancement, Mr. Fortune “didn’t have any use for [Mary Fortune’s] mother, his third or fourth daughter (he could never remember which)” (336), thus showing the depth of his destructive obsession. Literary scholar Richard Giannone observes that, “having substituted wealth for power and power for human companionship, the isolated old man lives in vanity” (87). Also, Mr. Fortune demonstrates his need to be in control by believing that “anyone over sixty years of age is in an uneasy position unless he controls the greater interest” (337). Specifically, he seeks to control Mary Fortune, taking pride in their apparent similarities: “She had a head of thick, very fine, sand-colored hair – the exact kind he had had when he had had any [...] Her glasses were silver-rimmed like his and she even walked the way he did” (“View,” 339). He conceals his true desire to control her behind the guise of protecting her, noting, after telling her not to walk so close to the edge of the embankment, that “he was always careful to see that she avoided dangers. He would not allow her to sit in snakey places or put her hands on bushes that might hide hornets” (339). Therefore, Mr. Fortune’s behavior toward both the new industrial advancements and Mary Fortune defines him as controlling and money-focused.
Consequently, Mary Fortune’s spiritual awareness as a child of God foreshadows her purpose in attempting to reveal to Mr. Fortune his damning blindness. Many passages show that the Bible reveres and cherishes children. For instance, Solomon writes that “children are a gift from the Lord; they are a reward from him” (Ps. 127.3 NLT). Likewise, Jesus praises children by telling his disciples to “let the children come to me. Don’t stop them! For the Kingdom of God belongs to those who are like these children,” whom Jesus subsequently takes “in his arms, [placing] his hands on their heads and [blessing] them” (Mark 10.14-16 NLT). Mary Fortune presents herself as a child of God through her knowledge of Biblical passages, which also foreshadow her role as the revealer of Mr. Fortune’s blindness. After Mr. Fortune disrespects Pitts, Mary Fortune tells him simply that “he who calls his brother a fool is subject to hell fire” (“View,” 342), a direct quotation of Matthew 5:22, where Jesus instructs that “whoever says, ‘You fool!’ [to his brother] will be liable to the hell of fire” (ESV). Mary Fortune’s quotation foreshadows Mr. Fortune’s downfall that perhaps results in his damnation to the “hell of fire.” O’Connor writes that she feels Mary Fortune’s quoting of the verse about hell fire is “effective there” because “some prediction of hell for the old man is essential to my story” (The Habit of Being, 187).
Mary Fortune displays similar Biblical understanding when, in anger, she calls Mr. Fortune “the Whore of Babylon” (“View,” 343), referring to the story of the Great Prostitute in Revelation 17 that precedes the Fall of Babylon. In Revelation 17, an angel shows the disciple John a prostitute with “a mysterious name written on her forehead: ‘Babylon the Great, Mother of All Prostitutes and Obscenities in the World” (Rev. 17.5 NLT), indicating the prostitute as a representation of the great city of Babylon. In the same way that the angel announces that “judgement is going to come on the great prostitute” (Rev. 17.1 NLT), Mary Fortune’s knowledge of the Biblical story foreshadows judgement brought upon Mr. Fortune, the subsequent fall of Babylon foreshadowing Mr. Fortune’s death. As a result, Mary Fortune’s Biblical knowledge confirms her role as the revealer of Mr. Fortune’s blindness.
The woods that Mary Fortune adamantly defends symbolize Christ, thereby potentially defining Mary Fortune as the physical being who carries out the message of Jesus. The story’s first description of the view highlights that “the red corrugated lake eased up to within fifty feet of the construction and was bordered on the other side by a black line of woods which appeared at both ends of the view to walk across the water and continue along the edge of the fields” (“View,” 335). In a letter, O’Connor reveals the significance of the woods as symbolic of Jesus when she says that “the woods, if anything, are the Christ symbol. They walk across the water, they are bathed in red light, and they in the end escape the old man’s vision and march off over the hills. The name of the story is the view of the woods and the woods alone are pure enough to be a Christ symbol if anything is” (Habit, 190). Literary scholar Margaret Earley Whitt builds on O’Connor’s explanation by adding that she “gives life to the idea [of the woods as symbolic of Jesus] through a central character, the young Mary Fortune Pitts” (127). Therefore, Mary Fortune perhaps carries out Jesus’ message of redemption by revealing Mr. Fortune’s blindness. In the same way that Mr. Fortune’s name reflects his purpose, Mary Fortune’s name, “Pitts,” reflects her purpose in communicating Jesus’ message. For instance, in Revelation, an angel “com[es] down from heaven” and throws Satan “into a bottomless pit” (Rev. 20.1-3 NLT). Scholar Frederick Asals uses Satan’s fate according to Revelation to explain that Mary Fortune’s name “Pitts” evokes the “powerlessness and suffering,” the “pain, loss, and worldly defeat” of the “bottomless pit” that potentially awaits Mr. Fortune in his blindness (98). Therefore, as the physical manifestation of the trees that symbolize Jesus and his message of redemption, Mary Fortune potentially reveals the detriment of Mr. Fortune’s blindness.
In the story’s conclusion, Mr. Fortune’s need for control that causes his blindness climaxes in murder once he ultimately loses his control. The ultimatum Mr. Fortune presents Mary Fortune in an effort to resolidify his control over her backfires. He asks her simply, “‘Are you a Fortune,’ he said, ‘or are you a Pitts? Make up your mind.’ Her voice was loud and positive and belligerent. ‘I’m Mary – Fortune – Pitts,’ she said. ‘Well I,’ he shouted, ‘am PURE Fortune!’” (“View,” 351). After Mary Fortune assaults Mr. Fortune and ultimately rejects him by shouting that she is “‘PURE Pitts’” (355), Mr. Fortune responds to his total loss of control by taking “hold of her throat” and “looking down into the face that was his own but had dared to call itself Pitts” (355). Mr. Fortune’s murder of Mary Fortune ultimately leads to his downfall in death. However, Mary Fortune challenging and rejecting Mr. Fortune reveals his blindness caused by his need for control. Despite her challenge continuing in her death through her “fixed glare” on Mr. Fortune with “no look of remorse” (355), Mr. Fortune still fails to recognize and be redeemed of his blindness. By staring at her dead body and saying with defiance, “This ought to teach you a good lesson” (355), Mr. Fortune attempts to reassert his control over Mary Fortune, thereby demonstrating continued blindness and solidifying his downfall.
O’Connor warns readers that rejecting Jesus results in death by presenting Mary Fortune’s death as a symbolic representation of Jesus’s crucifixion and by depicting Mr. Fortune’s death. When Mr. Fortune misses the opportunity for redemption provided by Mary Fortune that results in his continued blindness and destruction, he ultimately rejects the salvation of Jesus, thereby concretizing the larger theological implications of Mr. Fortune’s actions. The apostle Paul explains in his letter to the Romans that “if you openly declare that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved” (Rom. 10.9 NLT), thus showing the death of Jesus as the source of salvation. Therefore, since Mary Fortune physically embodies Jesus’s message, her death represents the salvation derived from Jesus’s death. Therefore, Giannone points out that, in Mr. Fortune’s death, the “evergreens indicate judgement” (93), highlighting Jesus while the dying Mr. Fortune sees “that the gaunt trees had thickened into mysterious dark files that were marching across the water” (“View,” 356). As a result of rejecting the the chance for redemption offered by Mary Fortune, Mr. Fortune experiences the condemning judgement of Jesus, which perhaps embodies O’Connor’s theological purpose for “A View of the Woods.” Whitt explains O’Connor’s desire to convey a theological message to readers by stating that “integrity to [O’Connor’s] vision meant characters had to yield, to suffer, to die, if necessary, so that an essential Christian point could be driven home” (128). Therefore, O’Connor shows her point in warning readers against death as the ultimate punishment for rejecting Jesus, urging them to adhere to the Bible’s teachings.
Works Cited
Asals, Frederick. “The Double.” Modern Critical Views: Flannery O’Connor, edited by Harold Bloom, New York City, Chelsea House Publishers, 1986,
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ESV Study Bible: English Standard Version. Translated by Crossway, ESV text ed., Wheaton, Crossway Bibles, 2011.
Giannone, Richard. “Displacing Gender: Flannery O’Connor’s View from the Woods.” Flannery O’Connor: New Perspectives, edited by Sura P. Rath and Mary Neff Shaw, Athens, U of Georgia P, 1997, pp. 73-95.
Gooch, Brad. Flannery: A Life of Flannery O’Connor. New York, Little, Brown, 2009.
Holy Bible: New Living Translation. Translated by Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Tyndale House Publishers, 2015.
O’Connor, Flannery. The Habit of Being. Edited by Sally Fitzgerald, New York City, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1979.
---. “A View of the Woods.” The Complete Stories, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1971, pp. 335-56.
Whitt, Margaret Earley. Understanding Flannery O’Connor. Columbia, U of South Carolina P, 1997.