A Temple of the Holy Ghost by Flannery O'Connor - Critical Essay

Introduction

Flannery O'Connor was an accomplished author of short stories, essays and poems who was born in 1925, March 25th in Savannah Georgia and died in Milledgeville on August 3rd, 1964 aged 39. The novelist grew up in a strong Roman Catholic family, a lifestyle that dictates much of her work which is concerned with individual relationship with God (Cash 21). Her family relocated to Milledgeville, Georgia in 1938 upon worsening of her father's condition of Lupus erythematous, the same condition that killed O'Connor. Her first publication worked came in 1946 followed by her first novel titled "Wise blood" (1952). All through O'Connor's literature, her works and characters are inspired by her Roman Catholic culture, deformity in her family (lupus erythematosus), and other personal experiences encountered in her life (O'Connor 123). In the short story "A Temple of the Holy Ghost," Flannery O'Connor's uses life experiences such as her deformity, background history, and her Roman Catholic doctrines as inspirations that surface in her story which wraps up with the theme of acceptance of grace in grotesque.

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A Temple of Holy Spirit

A Temple of Holy Ghost is a story narrated in third-person point of view by a 12 years old child whose cousins, Susan and Joanne visit for a weekend from a Catholic convent called Mount St, Scholastica. The child who is depicted as a funny character in many circumstances is cited trying to help her mother find entertainment for her two cousins who describe themselves as Temples of the Holy Ghost as instructed by sister Perpetua (O'Connor 137). Being a sharp and smart child, she also considers it right to be the Temple of the Holy Spirit and thereafter helps her mother to find entertainment for the two girls by suggesting the neighborhood boys, Wendell and Cory to visit them. Even after the boys visiting, the child maintains a distance by watching and wondering how the girls were giggling and making fun of the two boys singing and who were not Catholics but members of Church of God.

In most times the child is in isolation away from her cousins and the two neighbors and even after dinner, she declines to go for the fair with the four older children. She remains in her room daydreaming about being a saint and finally goes to bed after praying and thanking God she is not in the Church of God as the two boys. She is later awoken by her returned cousins who narrate what they saw in the fair especially a hermaphrodite who is described by the two girls as a freak (O'Connor 130). Despite being unaware of hermaphrodite, she goes to bed imagining how the hermaphrodite said as "I am a temple of Holy Ghost." The story ends in the convent when they escort her cousin back to the convent where they encounter a nun and a priest in chapel who raises a host and describes it as the body of Christ, an event that makes the child recall the hermaphrodite statement and how it connects to what she saw in church.

Life/Story Inspiration

From a personal life, Flannery O'Connor was brought up in a strong Roman Catholic culture that followed the Catholic doctrine. In her biography, she is described as a person who deeply believed and was well-versed with the spiritual notion that the world was created and continues to be charged by God. As such, most of her literature fictional works predominant in Catholic literature and understanding (Kessler 15). In many of her works, she always describes Protestants symbolically as deceptively backward characters who engage in characters that bring them closer to Catholic minds through absurd behavior (Janet & Irving 103). When compared with this short story, O'Connor seemed to have derived much inspiration from her life. Her two cousins, Susan and Joanne are in a Catholic convent and towards the end, the story takes into account the Catholic teachings and the symbolic meaning of the body of Christ in the chapel (Cash 39). In addition, Wendell and Cory characters who were Protestants are inspired by her notion of illusive Protestants who are brought closer to Catholic minds through absurd behavior which in this case is the singing of the boys to impress Susan and Joanne.

Also, the inspiration used by O'Connor in her literary works is the use of grotesque in her fictional short stories which can be traced back to her early life encounters. In the story A Temple of the Holy Ghost, O'Connor uses a hermaphrodite who is described by the narrator's cousins as a freak who was both a man and a woman, "No," Susan said, "it was a man and woman both. It pulled up its dress and showed us." This is a direct inspiration from the author's life who grew up in a family infected by Lupus erythematous, a disease that left her father deformed and later on the author who was also affected by the disease (Janet & Irving 64). From the comparison of the hermaphrodite and the Lupus erythematous, it is evident that the author does not really write or represent her character but was inspired and obliged to add more detail to her literature by relating to her past life.

Besides, O'Connor is regarded as one of the best writers who originated from the South and whose style has been described as Southern Gothic style. Being born and bred in South, O'Connor does not fail to incorporate events of the Southerners in most of her works that centers on morality and ethics. In this short story, the author keenly points out the issue of race which slightly appears in the story background (Cash 28). The Southern states are commonly associated with slavery and in the story, Mr. Cheatam who was an admirer to Miss Kirby is described as "...a rich old farmer who arrived every Saturday afternoon...with Negroes that he charged ten cents apiece to bring into town..." A striking and evident incorporation of her lifestyle events in her literature works.

The theme of acceptance of grace and symbolization of the human body as the temple of the Holy Ghost has been brought out in the story. This theme is an inspiration from the personal experience of the author who despite being diagnosed with lupus erythematosus, she accepted it and lived 12 years with the disease and seven years extended than estimated (Kessler 18). In the story, her life experience can be compared to the hermaphrodite in the fair who explained to the people that he was contented with her appearance and had to make the best of it without complaints, "God made me this way and if you laugh He may strike you the same way... I'm showing you because I got to make the best of it" (O'Connor 138). From the comparison, it is easy to deduce that both Flannery O'Connor and the hermaphrodite not only accepted the deformity position in their individual life but accepted it as God's will and purpose in their lives.

Lastly, there is a striking relation between O'Connor and the narrator in the story who is a child. With the child remaining nameless all through the story, it signifies that such a character could represent anybody anywhere, especially with her aptitude to absorb details and influences. In fact, the child can also be interpreted as the author (O'Connor 127) because through the authors lifetime, she has been described as socially stubborn and an individual who lacked grace. Despite judging the people around, she views herself as faithful and intelligence but only let go of the pride at the end and allows the experience of the mass service to achieve Grace in the long run.

Conclusion

Conclusively, Flannery O'Connor is an author who has been able to utilize her life experiences as a tool to narrate fictional stories to her audience. As such, the use of O'Connor's life inspirations ranging from her religion, deformation, and background history has been effectively reflected in relation to her characters. Different themes such as isolation and acceptance have been depicted successfully through a style of writing which compares characters with different ideological notions brought out through fictional characters. In general, "A Temple of Holy Ghost" is a short story that shows how far inspiration goes in the quest to attract an audience in literature as Flannery O'Connor accomplished.

Work Cited

Cash, Jean W. Flannery O'Connor: a life. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2002, 22-50

Janet, Catherine & Irving, Sarah. "A Jungle of Shadows: Interpenetrations of the Anagogical and the Grotesque in the Short Stories of Flannery O'Connor." University of Cape Town, 1999, 1-227

Kessler, Edward. 1986. Flannery 0 'Connor and the Language of Apocalypse. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 15-20

O'Connor, Flannery. The Complete Stories, Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1962, 123-140. Accessed from https://www.pothe.org/documents/2017/1/The-Complete-Stories-Flannery-OConnor.pdf