The River

Flannery O’Connor’s “The River,” written in November 1952, became the second story in her first collection, A Good Man Is Hard to Find. According to biographer Brad Gooch, O’Connor gleaned inspiration for the story’s Reverend Bevel Summers from Mrs. Stevens, a woman who worked at Andalusia and “had recently told [O’Connor] of a dramatic sermon by her own preacher, also a fine singer: ‘Evy eye is on him … Not a breath stirs’” (226). Along with other employees, Mr. and Mrs. Stevens and their two daughters lived and worked at Andalusia. Mr. Stevens was the dairyman, and Mrs. Stevens did housework. Shortly after penning the story, O’Connor submitted it to the Sewanee Review. After its acceptance, the story appeared in the magazine’s summer 1953 issue. As her friendship with the Fitzgeralds in Connecticut paused while the couple travelled to Italy on a grant in the fall of 1953, O’Connor began a new friendship with Brainard and Frances Cheney, active members of the literary community who lived at their home, Cold Chimneys, just south of Nashville, Tennessee. O’Connor began to exchange letters with the Cheneys after Brainard Cheney published a “perceptive” (235) review of Wise Blood, O’Connor’s first novel, in Shenandoah, a literary quarterly published by Washington and Lee University. Therefore, a friendship commenced that resulted in O’Connor making many trips to stay with the Cheneys at Cold Chimneys. Soon after “The River” appeared in the Sewanee Review, O’Connor, staying with the Cheneys, gave a reading of the story, upon which Brainard reflected that “she read it for us in her good Georgia drawl: the exact tone of voice for the story, which I believe is her finest, perhaps” (qtd. in Gooch 238).

O’Connor defines her message in “The River” in two ways: First, she establishes baptism as a transformative experience that represents faith in Jesus as uncompromising, where people choose to follow Jesus either completely or not at all. Through the youth of Harry, who changes his name to Bevel, O’Connor asserts that all people, regardless of age or position in life, must make this choice, and she urges readers to choose Christ as Bevel does. Second, O’Connor demonstrates the importance of baptism, which she conveys through Bevel’s realization of its seriousness as well as through Reverend Bevel Summers’ authority. Biblical scripture supports the significance of baptism that defines O’Connor’s purpose for “The River,” which she describes in a letter to Sally and Robert Fitzgerald as “the story about the child that got baptized” (The Habit of Being, 60). The New Testament commonly joins baptism and repentance of sin, such as in Acts 2:38 where the apostle Peter says, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” (ESV). In its annotated footnotes, the ESV Study Bible explains that “the willingness to submit to baptism is an outward expression of inward faith in Christ” that symbolizes the washing away of a person’s sins (2085). However, Peter clarifies later that baptism itself does not save people, but the symbolism of the act as “an appeal to God” to remove one’s sins, does save people (1 Pet. 3.21 ESV). Closely relating to Bevel’s final baptism that causes his death, the apostle Paul explains in his letter to the Romans that “we are buried therefore with [Jesus] by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life” (Rom. 6.4 ESV). Here Paul illustrates the same immersive baptism Bevel experiences as symbolic of Christ’s burial following his crucifixion, therefore defining the act of baptism as symbolizing removal of sin and closeness with Jesus.

Summers’ explanation of baptism to Bevel while they are together in the river characterizes baptism as a transformative experience for Bevel that emphasizes the uncompromising call to follow Jesus. Summers first explains by telling Bevel that “‘if I Baptize you,’ the preacher said, ‘you’ll be able to go to the Kingdom of Christ. You’ll be washed in the river of suffering, son, and you’ll go by the deep river of life. Do you want that?’ ‘Yes,’ the child said, and thought, I won’t go back to the apartment then, I’ll go under the river. ‘You won’t be the same again,’ the preacher said. ‘You’ll count’” (“The River,” 168). Through his aversion toward returning to the apartment, Bevel defines the apartment as a representation of evil, which Bevel seeks to escape through baptism. Bevel’s desire to be baptized and to escape from the sinful life of the apartment defines his baptism as a transformative experience. Later, when he returns to the sinful apartment, “very slowly, his expression changed as if he were gradually seeing appear what he didn’t know he’d been looking for. Then all of a sudden he knew what he wanted to do” (172), thus signaling his desire to return to the river and flee from sin. By not taking a suitcase when he leaves the apartment, “because there was nothing from there he wanted to keep” (172), Bevel proves the transformation of his views, which now reject the sin represented by the apartment. As a result, Bevel’s transformation defines the choice to follow Jesus as uncompromising. Similarly, Summers also demands of the people around the river, “‘Believe in Jesus or the devil!’ he cried. ‘Testify to one or the other!’” (166). Therefore, between Summers’ demand of the people along the river to choose either Jesus or the Devil and Bevel’s subsequent baptism as a clear choice of Jesus, O’Connor demonstrates the transformative nature of baptism and urges readers to make the choice to follow Jesus.

Bevel understands the seriousness of his baptism just before it happens as well as when he decides to return to the river to be baptized again. Once in Summers’ arms in the river, Bevel “had the sudden feeling that this was not a joke. Where he lived everything was a joke. From the preacher’s face, he knew immediately that nothing the preacher said or did was a joke” (167-168). By comparing his life at the sinful apartment to Summers’ conviction, which represents the opposite of evil, Bevel realizes the significance of baptism just before it transforms him. Understanding of this significance climaxes for Bevel when he decides to return to the river, where he “intended not to fool with preachers anymore but to Baptize himself and to keep on going this time until he found the Kingdom of Christ in the river” (173). Bevel, therefore, demonstrates his unwavering choice to follow Jesus completely despite his very young age at “four or five” (158). As scholar Margaret Earley Whitt explains, “even to a boy so young, the preference for the richness of experience and growth on his day at the river to his routine life in the city with drinking and joking parents occurs to him. He makes the decision instantaneously” (51) to return to the river in a fully-committed search for Jesus that shows Bevel’s understanding of the seriousness of his baptism. As a result, O’Connor conveys to readers that “there is no middle ground, even the likes of the very young must choose” (Whitt 52) whether to follow Jesus, thus embodying in young Bevel her Christian theological ideals.

O’Connor additionally uses the severity of Bevel’s death to steer readers’ attention toward understanding her message of the necessity of choosing Jesus. Essayist Jefferson Humphries explains that O’Connor uses death as “a movement toward the Holy” where Bevel “has discovered in his immersion a calling” to seek Jesus (118). Bevel, therefore, readily immerses himself in the water in his search for the “Kingdom of Christ” (“The River,” 173), not as an intentional drowning to escape the sinful apartment. Literary scholar Ralph C. Wood explains that Bevel, in his committed search for Christ, “finds the final kingdom not by repeating his once-and-for-all sacramental baptism, but by seeking – in a watery and literal-minded way – precisely what baptism at once enables and demands: total burial with Christ” (173), thus evoking the meaning of Romans 6:4. While Paul uses “baptism into death” (Rom. 6.4 ESV) metaphorically to represent the cleansing of sins, O’Connor’s use of death literally and graphically drives forth for readers her belief in the exigency of choosing Jesus. As a result, O’Connor pushes readers to view Bevel’s death as symbolically important instead of tragic because, as scholar George Toles explains, in his second baptism, Bevel is “torn loose for good from the filth and meanness of his sad life above the river surface. The death is not presented ironically. Drowning, for this child, is a good solution: a swift coming home to Jesus” (144). Similarly, in an interview with three students at the College of Saint Teresa in October 1960, O’Connor discloses that “Bevel hasn’t reached the age of reason; therefore, he cannot commit suicide. He comes to a good end. He’s saved from those nutty parents, a fate worse than death. He’s been baptized and so he goes to his Maker; this is a good end” (qtd. in Magee 58). Therefore, O’Connor uses Bevel’s striking death to push readers toward understanding her view of the seriousness and urgency of choosing Jesus.

The rhetoric, authority, and theological knowledge of Reverend Summers additionally convey O’Connor’s purpose for “The River.” Summers displays his authority as a powerful speaker through exclamations, demands, honesty, and knowledge of the Bible. For example, before pronouncing his mantra about the “River of Life,” Summers “lifted his head and arms and shouted, ‘Listen to what I got to say, you people!” and then later shouting again, “‘Listen,’ he sang” (“The River,” 165). Summers not only commands the attention of the audience around the river, but he also speaks honestly, admitting at one point that at another session of preaching, “‘them people didn’t see no healing,’ he said and his face burned redder for a second. ‘I never said they would’” (166). O’Connor uses Summers’ rhetorical command of his audience to also command her audience of readers, thereby conveying the pertinence of baptism. Wood alludes to the significance of Summers as a captivating speaker by explaining that his influential, “authoritative voice [...] announces the idol-shattering Word of the living God” and “calls both the church and the world to repentance and reconciliation” (155). As a result, the urgency resounding in Summers’ speech affirms that “for him, baptism is no mere symbol of the human promise to follow Jesus; it is a sacramental act” (170), thereby furthering O’Connor’s message for readers. Summers also conveys O’Connor’s message through demonstration of his Christian theological knowledge. For example, he tells the crowd that he “read in Mark about an unclean man, I read in Luke about a blind man, I read in John about a dead man!” (“The River,” 165). Here, Summers references three major Biblical stories, where the first in Mark tells the story of Jesus healing a man with leprosy (1:40-45), the second in Luke tells the story of Jesus giving sight to a blind man (18:35-43), and the third in John tells the story of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead (11:1-44). Demonstrating a breadth of Biblical knowledge increases Summers’ credibility as an influential speaker. Collectively, therefore, Summers’ oratory and conviction authoritatively convey O’Connor’s message for readers of the necessity of choosing to follow Jesus, thereby exhibiting O’Connor’s personal theological views.

Works Cited

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

Gooch, Brad. Flannery: A Life of Flannery O’Connor. New York, Little, Brown, 2009.

Humphries, Jefferson. “Proust, Flannery O’Connor, and the Aesthetic of Violence.” Modern Critical Views: Flannery O’Connor, edited by Harold Bloom, New York City, Chelsea House Publishers, 1986, pp. 111-24.

Magee, Rosemary M., editor. Conversations with Flannery O'Connor. Jackson, UP of Mississippi, 1987.

O’Connor, Flannery. The Habit of Being. Edited by Sally Fitzgerald, New York City, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1979.

---. “The River.” The Complete Stories, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1971, pp. 157-74.

Toles, George. “Drowning Children with Flannery O’Connor.” Raritan: A Quarterly Review, vol. 31, no. 3, winter 2012, pp. 142-57. MLA International Bibliography.

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.