The Displaced Person

Last updated
"The Displaced Person"
Short story by Flannery O'Connor
Country United States
Language English
Genre(s) Southern Gothic
Publication
Published in A Good Man Is Hard to Find
Publication typesingle author anthology
Publication date1955

"The Displaced Person" is a novella by Flannery O'Connor. It was published in 1955 in her short story collection A Good Man Is Hard to Find . A devout Roman Catholic, O'Connor often used religious themes in her work and her own family hired a displaced person after World War II.

Contents

Plot summary

The story takes place on a farm in Georgia, just after World War II in the 1940s. The owner of the farm, Mrs. McIntyre, contacts a Catholic priest to find her a "displaced person" to work as a farm hand. The priest finds a Polish refugee named Mr. Guizac who relocates with his family to the farm. Because the displaced person is quite industrious, the Shortleys, a family of white farm hands, feel threatened and try to manipulate Mrs. McIntyre into firing Guizac, but Mrs. McIntyre makes a decision to fire Shortley instead because of his unsatisfactory work. Formerly a staunch atheist, Mrs. Shortley has taken to reading the Bible and experiences a vision of the Ophanim. Soon afterwards she packs with her family and they leave before Mrs. McIntyre can give them their month’s notice. When Mrs. McIntyre finds out that Guizac has asked his teenage cousin to come to America by marrying one of the African American farm hands, she is appalled, her appreciation of him melts down. A few weeks later Mr. Shortley comes back and says Mrs. Shortley died of a stroke on the day that they left. Mrs. McIntyre rehires Mr. Shortley, but realizes it was Mrs. Shortley she has been missing. Under the pressure of public opinion and because of her own resentment, Mrs. McIntyre is intending to fire Mr. Guizac, but puts it off several times. When she eventually goes to fire him, she becomes a silent participant in his murder, when – with Mrs. McIntyre quietly observing – a bitter, resentful Mr. Shortley positions a tractor to roll over Guizac's body as if by accident as he works beneath another machine. The tractor finally does so, crushing and killing him. Mrs. McIntyre's farmhands abandon her and, after she suffers a nervous collapse, she is bedridden and receives no visitors save for the priest. [1]

Analysis

The story was written while O'Connor was residing with her mother at a farm called Andalusia. Scholars believe that the farm was the inspiration for the setting in "The Displaced Person" and is the work most closely associated with Andalusia. [2] O'Connor's mother also employed a Polish refugee family and several African American laborers at Andalusia. [3]

Flannery O'Connor was fascinated with peacocks, described in her essay "The King of the Birds." In the story, the way the characters view the peacocks often corresponds to their own moral compass. For example, Father Flynn and Astor have positive attitudes towards the birds and are generally likable characters, while Mrs. McIntyre starves the birds and reduces their population, making her a villain. [4]

Adaptation

The story was adapted and released in 1977 as a Public Television production for the series The American Short Story, starring Irene Worth and Shirley Stoler. The cast also includes John Houseman, Robert Earl Jones, and Samuel L. Jackson. It was filmed at Andalusia.

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Flannery O'Connor</span> American writer (1925–1964)

Mary Flannery O'Connor was an American novelist, short story writer and essayist. She wrote two novels and 31 short stories, as well as a number of reviews and commentaries.

<i>Wise Blood</i> 1952 novel by Flannery OConnor

Wise Blood is the first novel by American author Flannery O'Connor, published in 1952. The novel was assembled from disparate stories first published in Mademoiselle, The Sewanee Review and Partisan Review. The first chapter is an expanded version of her Master's thesis, "The Train", and other chapters are reworked versions of "The Peeler," "The Heart of the Park" and "Enoch and the Gorilla". The novel concerns a returning World War II veteran who, haunted by a life-long crisis of faith, resolves to form an anti-religious ministry in an eccentric, fictionalized city in the Southern United States after finding his family homestead abandoned without a trace.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Larry Brown (writer)</span> American novelist

William Larry Brown was an American novelist, non-fiction and short story writer. He won numerous awards, including the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters award for fiction, the Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Award, and Mississippi's Governor's Award For Excellence in the Arts. He was also the first two-time winner of the Southern Book Award for Fiction.

<i>A Good Man Is Hard to Find and Other Stories</i> 1955 short story collection by Flannery OConnor

A Good Man Is Hard to Find and Other Stories is a collection of short stories by American author Flannery O'Connor. The collection was first published in 1955. The subjects of the short stories range from baptism to serial killers to human greed and exploitation. The majority of the stories include jarring violent scenes that make the characters undergo a spiritual change. The short stories commonly have tones of Catholicism related to life and death scenarios. For instance, in the story "A Good Man Is Hard To Find" the villain states, "She would have been a good woman if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Andalusia (Milledgeville, Georgia)</span> Historic house in Georgia, United States

Andalusia is a historic home once owned by Southern American author Flannery O'Connor. The estate is located in rural Georgia in Baldwin County, Georgia, approximately 4 miles (6.4 km) northwest of Milledgeville. It comprises 544 acres (2.20 km2), including the plantation house where O'Connor wrote some of her last and best-known fiction.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Revelation (short story)</span> Short story by Flannery OConnor

"Revelation" is a Southern Gothic short story by author Flannery O'Connor about the delivery and effect of a revelation to a sinfully proud, self-righteous, middle-aged, middle class, rural, white Southern woman that her confidence in her own Christian salvation is an error. The protagonist receives divine grace by accepting God's judgment that she is unfit for salvation, by learning that the prospect for her eventual redemption improves after she receives a vision of Particular Judgment, where she observes the souls of people she detests are the first to ascend to Heaven and those of people like herself who "always had a little of everything and the God-given wit to use it right" are last to ascend and experience purgation by fire on the way up.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">A Good Man Is Hard to Find (short story)</span> Short story by Flannery OConnor

"A Good Man Is Hard to Find" is a Southern gothic short story first published in 1953 by author Flannery O'Connor who, in her own words, described it as "the story of a family of six which, on its way driving to Florida [from Georgia], is slaughtered by an escaped convict who calls himself the Misfit".

The bibliography of Flannery O'Connor includes two novels, more than thirty short stories, and several collections.

"The River" is a Southern gothic short story by the American author Flannery O'Connor that was first published in 1953 about a very young boy who is taken by his babysitter to a preacher at a Christian healing where he is baptized in a river, and, the next day, runs away from home to the site of his baptism and baptizes himself, and then is taken by the river to find the Kingdom of Christ, as told by the preacher, and drowns.

"The Life You Save May Be Your Own" is a short story by the American author Flannery O'Connor. It is one of the 10 stories in her short story collection A Good Man Is Hard to Find, published in 1955.

"A Stroke of Good Fortune", originally published as "A Woman on the Stairs", is a short story by the American author Flannery O'Connor about a woman who discovers to her disappointment and disbelief that she is pregnant.

"The Artificial Nigger" is a short story by Flannery O'Connor. It was published in 1955 in her short story collection A Good Man Is Hard to Find. The title refers to statues popular in the Jim Crow-era Southern United States, depicting grotesque minstrelsy characters. Like most of her other works, the story reflects O'Connor's Roman Catholic beliefs and acts as a parable.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Parker's Back</span> Short story by Flannery OConnor

"Parker's Back" is a Southern gothic short story by American author Flannery O'Connor about the efforts of a worldly tattooed Southern man to demonstrate his love for a fundamentalist Christian woman whom he courts and marries but never understands why he stays with her. After a self-indulgent, disordered, and carefree life, the story's protagonist accepts God's grace and fulfills the meaning of his given name, Obadiah, but his wife with her Old Testament beliefs rejects grace in the form of Jesus Christ tattooed on her husband's back. The work was published in 1965, in her final short story collection, Everything That Rises Must Converge. André Bleikasten, a scholar who studied Southern American writers and their works, said "'Parker's Back' belongs with O'Connor's most explicitly religious stories" as well as “one of her most enigmatic and gripping texts”.

"Good Country People" is a short story by Flannery O'Connor. It was published in 1955 in her short story collection A Good Man Is Hard to Find. A devout Roman Catholic, O'Connor often used religious themes in her work. Many considered this to be one of her greatest stories.

"Greenleaf" is a short story by Flannery O'Connor published in 1956 in The Kenyon Review, and later appeared in her short story collection Everything That Rises Must Converge that was published in 1965 after her death in August 1964. The work garnered the author's first O. Henry Award first prize in 1957.

"A Circle in the Fire" is a short story by Flannery O'Connor. It was written in 1954 and published in 1955 in her short story collection A Good Man is Hard to Find. A devout Roman Catholic, O'Connor often used religious themes in her work.

"The Enduring Chill" is a short story by Flannery O'Connor. It was written in 1958 and published in 1965 in her short story collection Everything That Rises Must Converge.

Blue Fire Lady is a 1977 Australian film directed by Ross Dimsey and starring Cathryn Harrison and Mark Holden. It was a rare children's film from producer Antony I. Ginnane who was better known for his horror and sex films.

The Heart of the Park is a short story written by Flannery O'Connor.

References

  1. Flannery O'Connor: an introduction (Univ. Press of Mississippi, 1991), pg. 173-183
  2. Kirk, Connie Ann. Critical Companion to Flannery O'Connor. New York: Facts on Files, 2008: 315. ISBN   978-0-8160-6417-5
  3. Flannery., O'Connor (1987). Conversations with Flannery O'Connor. Magee, Rosemary M. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi. pp.  49 (Interview with Robert Donner in The Sign, 1961). ISBN   9780878052653. OCLC   14167914.
  4. "The Displaced Person Symbolism, Imagery, Allegory". www.shmoop.com. Retrieved 2017-05-06.