Everything That Rises Must Converge

In the beginning of 1961, Flannery O’Connor wrote “Everything That Rises Must Converge,” the first story in her posthumous second collection of the same name. Considering the recent election of John F. Kennedy, a Catholic, biographer Brad Gooch explains that the story’s title derives from priest Pierre Teilhard de Chardin’s popular phrase, “‘everything that rises must converge,’ which summed up the priest’s notion of all life, from geological to the human, converging toward an integration of the material and the spiritual, not to mention an integration of the scientific theory of evolution and the theological dogma of Incarnation, of God made man” (331). O’Connor’s close friend Maryat Lee, an avid supporter of the blossoming civil rights movement, urged O’Connor to write a story commenting on the racial politics of the South, an uncharacteristic topic for O’Connor. Lee shared a story with O’Connor about a bus ride she took north from Milledgeville in April 1960, where an African American woman wearing a large purple and red Easter hat sat beside her as a political act. But when Lee offered to save the woman’s seat for her after a rest stop, the disapproving woman moved to a seat in the back of the bus. Lee’s story ultimately inspired the plot of “Everything That Rises Must Converge.” New World Writing first published the story in October 1961, and it later appeared in The Best Stories of 1962, in Prize Stories 1963: The O’Henry Awards as a first place story, and in First-Prize Stories, 1919-1963. Slightly more than a year before the Civil Rights Act of 1964, “O’Connor wrote a friend, ‘I feel very good about those changes in the South that have been long overdue – the whole racial picture. I think it is improving by the minute, particularly in Georgia, and I don’t see how anybody could feel otherwise than good about that’” (qtd. in Gooch 337).

Scholarship on “Everything That Rises Must Converge” agrees that racial themes dominate O’Connor’s purpose for the story. She states in her letters that the story “touches on a certain topical issue” (The Habit of Being, 436), “a certain situation in the Southern states & indeed in all the world” (438), referring to racism. Therefore, O’Connor’s story breaks down the notion claimed by scholar Bryan Giemza: “That there were orders, that they endured, and that one belonged to them constituted the bedrock of southern political thought” (175). Contextualizing the influence of current events happening during O’Connor’s career leads to scholar Patricia Yaeger’s conclusion that “this is a story that depends on the changes in southern society wrought by Martin Luther King, the freedom riders, and thousands of other African American activists” (204). While O’Connor’s story depicts the social outcomes that potentially arise as a result of these changes, scholar Timothy P. Caron adds that “the collision between” the ideas of the South’s past “and the reality of the South’s rapidly changing social codes is rendered in the typically violent terms common to O’Connor’s fiction” (151), thus revealing the emphasis through violence O’Connor places on the significance of adjusting attitudes toward race. While critics unquestionably agree on the importance of race as the story’s main purpose, scholar Ralph C. Wood acknowledges O’Connor’s use of Christian theology by stating that O’Connor is not satisfied with “the perpetual division of black and white into separate if equal spheres,” and therefore O’Connor “gestures at a more excellent way” of healing racial wounds in capitalizing “reconciliation between brothers and sisters of the same Lord” (119). As a result, Wood highlights O’Connor’s proposition of Christian theology as an equalizer among races that offers the potential for racial understanding and cooperation.

Minor references to Christianity and the church at the story’s beginning insinuate the possibility of a religious reading of “Everything That Rises Must Converge.” O’Connor first refers to martyrdom in the early Christian church by stating that Julian, in anticipation of escorting his mother to her class at the Y, “wait[s] like Saint Sebastian for the arrows to begin piercing him” (“Converge,” 405). Then, accompanying his mother to the bus stop, Julian “walked along, saturated in depression, as if in the midst of his martyrdom he had lost his faith” (407). By first citing Christianity through the imagery of violent martyrdom associated with the early church, O’Connor blatantly evinces the presence of Christianity in the story. Furthermore, she reveals that “when [Julian] got on a bus by himself, he made it a point to sit down beside a Negro, in reparation as it were for his mother’s sins” (409). Here, O’Connor converts the social dilemma of racism to a theological dilemma by suggesting a theological consequence for racism as a sin. While people have used the Bible, a book subject to numerous interpretations like any book, to support racism and slavery throughout history, countless Biblical passages also refute racism. For instance, Jesus instructs his followers to “go and make disciples of all the nations” (Matt. 28.19 NLT), regardless of race, ethnicity, or background. Likewise, the apostle Paul writes that people “are all children of God through faith in Christ Jesus. [...] There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3.26-28 NLT). Finally, in John’s vision, he describes the people in heaven as “from every nation and tribe and people and language, standing in front of the throne” (Rev. 7.9 NLT). Therefore, O’Connor’s conversion of her story’s racial issue into a theological conversation gestures toward the Bible’s rejection of racism.

Julian and his mother struggle to accept the transition from the old, traditional principles of the South surrounding race to new conventions, which signifies cultural convergence. Steeped in the old ways of the South, Julian’s mother reveals the depth of her racism when she repeatedly complains that the introduction of new practices regarding race has created “such a mess” (“Converge,” 406). O'Connor uses similar language to reiterate Julian's mother's views again on pages 407 and 410. Scholar Margaret Earley Whitt explains that “Julian’s mother is part of the ‘Old South,’ where relationships, names, home, tradition, and history all shape a person’s life and livelihood” (115). When Julian asserts that “there are no more slaves,” his mother retorts that “they were better off when they were. [...] It’s ridiculous. It’s simply not realistic. They should rise, yes, but on their own side of the fence” (“Converge,” 408). While it seems that Julian’s mother supports the rise of African Americans, she does not understand the implication of African Americans rising on her beloved old ways. Similarly, while Whitt claims that “Julian belongs to the ‘New South,’ represented by liberated youth who hold little stock in the former racist ways of their parents’ generation” (116), Julian still demonstrates a racism that categorizes him alongside his mother. Julian notes that “he had never been successful at making Negro friends. He had tried to strike up an acquaintance on the bus with some of the better types, with ones that looked like professors or ministers or lawyers” (“Converge,” 414). While Julian’s intentions may be genuine, his inability to ignore class and position in his view of African Americans reveals a racism that parallels his mother’s.

Attempting to show his mother the necessity of adopting the new conventions of cultural convergence that accept and legitimize African Americans, Julian reveals his mother’s inability to adopt the new ways, which leads to her downfall in death. After the African American woman strikes Julian’s mother with her purse, Julian explains that “‘what all this means,’ he said, ‘is that the old world is gone. The old manners are obsolete and your graciousness is not worth a damn. [...] From now on you’ve got to live in a new world and face a few realities for a change’” (419). However, Julian’s mother reveals her inability to adopt the new ways by “paying no attention to him” (419). Then, once Julian assures her that adopting the new ways “won’t kill you” (419), his mother begins to have a stroke and subsequently dies, demonstrating that death is the ultimate consequence of rejecting the new ways and clinging to the old ways. O’Connor furthers her theological purpose for the story in paralleling Julian’s emphasis on the need to accept the new ways with the manifestation of Jesus’s ministry. The author of Hebrews explains that Jesus’s new order “made the first one obsolete” (Heb. 8.13 NLT), which mirrors Julian’s statement that “the old manners are obsolete” (“Converge,” 419). In this way, Julian reveals the need to accept new racial attitudes, but his mother’s inability to reject the old ways results in her death.

Specifically, Jesus’s ministry asserts that death is the consequence for not accepting the new order, which parallels Julian’s mother’s death as the consequence for not accepting new racial ideals. During Nicodemus’s interaction with Jesus under the cover of night, Jesus explains the principle of his new order that dominates Christian doctrine today: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. [...] Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God” (John 3.16, 18 ESV). The ESV Study Bible explicates this passage by stating that “the purpose of giving his Son was to make God’s gift of eternal life available to everyone,” but that those who refuse to accept Jesus will “perish in eternal judgement” since “they stand condemned already before God for their sins because they have not trusted God’s solution, [Jesus]” (2025). As a result, Jesus’s ministry declares that eternal judgement in the form of death awaits all who reject Jesus’s new ways. Literary scholar Marshall Bruce Gentry describes O’Connor’s theological message as manifested in “the lightning bolt of judgement delivered by the black mother who hits and perhaps kills Julian’s mother for patronizing the black child” (60). In the same way that Julian’s mother faces judgement in the form of death for ultimately rejecting the new racial principles, Jesus states that judgement in the form of death results for those who reject his new religious principles.

To fully explain her message, O’Connor parallels her story with the impacts of Jesus’s ministry portrayed in the Bible. First, Jesus reveals that his purpose for coming to Earth is not “to abolish the Law or the Prophets” but to “fulfill them” (Matt. 5.17 ESV). As a result, the author of Hebrews explains that, in fulfilling the prophecies of the Old Testament, Jesus “has been given a ministry that is far superior to the old priesthood. [...] If the first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no need for a second covenant to replace it. [...] When God speaks of a ‘new’ covenant, it means he has made the first one obsolete. It is now out of date and will soon disappear” (Heb. 8.6-7, 13 NLT). The author of Hebrews explains that the old ways, embodied in the teachings and prophecies of the Old Testament, become obsolete as a result of Jesus’s ministry, which introduces new conventions that supersede the old ways. This transitioning from old, traditional religious principles to new conventions signifies a theological convergence that mirrors the convergence of racial practices that Julian and his mother experience in the South. Through the initial presentation of this parallel, Whitt asserts that O’Connor’s depiction of integration as the physical manifestation of the cultural converge in the South surrounding race “is the vehicle that O’Connor uses for a more substantive theological projection” (121). Therefore, in a Christian sense, O’Connor replicates the convergence of Biblical religious practices in the cultural convergence surrounding race in her story.

While the Pharisees embody the old order of the Bible, Nicodemus, as a leading Pharisee who subscribes to the teachings of Jesus, represents the transition to the new order, and more specifically, the complexity and difficulty of the transition. After claiming to be the Son of God, Jesus creates much turmoil among the Pharisees, the experts of Jewish law and the priests belonging to the Sanhedrin, the ecclesiastical court system that tries Jews for breaking religious laws. In one instance, Nicodemus defends Jesus before the other Pharisees who want to wrongly arrest Jesus: “Does our law judge a man without first giving him a hearing and learning what he does?” (John 7.52 ESV). Nicodemus’s acceptance of Jesus marks Nicodemus’s adoption of the new religious practices Jesus’s ministry proposes. In this way, Nicodemus’s representation of the transition from the old ways to the new ways mirrors Julian’s assertion to his mother that she should adopt the new racial conventions emerging in the South. Similar to Julian’s and his mother’s difficulties with adopting the new ways, Nicodemus, as a Pharisee, demonstrates the difficulty and complexity of adopting Jesus’s new ways. For instance, in his first interaction with Jesus, Nicodemus “came to Jesus by night” (John 3.2 ESV), suggesting the hatred from other Pharisees Nicodemus could incur if they discover him with Jesus, whom most Pharisees consider to be heretical. Overall, therefore, Nicodemus’s adoption of the principles of Jesus’s ministry, which mark a theological convergence, mirrors Julian and his mother’s struggles to adopt the new racial principles that define the South’s cultural convergence.

Works Cited

Caron, Timothy P. “‘The Bottom Rail Is on the Top’: Race and ‘Theological Whiteness’ in Flannery O’Connor’s Short Fiction.” Inside the Church of Flannery O’Connor: Sacrament, Sacramental, and the Sacred in Her Fiction, edited by Joanne Halleran McMullen and Jon Parrish Peede, Mercer UP, 2007, pp. 138-64.

ESV Study Bible: English Standard Version. Translated by Crossway, ESV text ed., Wheaton, Crossway Bibles, 2011.

Gentry, Marshall Bruce. “Gender Dialogue in O’Connor.” Flannery O’Connor: New Perspectives, edited by Sura P. Rath and Mary Neff Shaw, U of Georgia P, 1996, pp. 57-72.

Giemza, Bryan. Irish Catholic Writers and the Invention of the American South. Baton Rouge, Louisiana State UP, 2013.

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. “Everything That Rises Must Converge.” The Complete Stories, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1971, pp. 405-20.

---. The Habit of Being. Edited by Sally Fitzgerald, New York City, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1979.

Whitt, Margaret Earley. Understanding Flannery O’Connor. Columbia, U of South Carolina P, 1997.

Wood, Ralph C. Flannery O’Connor and the Christ-Haunted South. Grand Rapids (Michigan), W.B. Eerdmans Publ., 2005.

Yaeger, Patricia. “Flannery O’Connor and the Aesthetics of Torture.” Flannery O’Connor: New Perspectives, edited by Sura P. Rath and Mary Neff Shaw, Athens, U of Georgia P, 1997, pp. 183-206.