Grotesque in Flannery O'Connor

The Grotesque in Flannery O'Connor Flannery O'Connor, a prolific Southern author, was born in Savannah, Georgia in 1925 during the Great Depression. After her father's death from lupus when O'Connor was fifteen, she and her mother moved to Andulusia, a rural quail farm outside of Milledgeville, Georgia. O'Connor herself was diagnosed with lupus at the age of twenty-five and suffered greatly from the disease which finally killed her. She was educated in parochial Catholic schools where …

…her characters have, but also the mental deformities as well. Flannery O'Connor's religious background and experiences through life reflect clearly in her stories through her grotesque and abnormal characters. The demented minds and impaired bodies of her characters, like that of O'Connor's lupus-ridden body, struggle through life's daily conflicts and turmoil. The messages she creates by her characters' inner conflicts clearly relate back to her need to present the good and evil in all people.