![ornamental line](FO_line.jpg)
"The Displaced Person"
"I am not responsible for the world's misery" (315).
Flannery O'Connor's "The Displaced Person" (1955)
Points
for Reflection
Flannery O'Connor's "The Displaced Person" (1955), 485-500
- do any of these characters encounter circumstances that force them to interrogate their own xenophobia and/or racism?
- consider the symbolic function of the ubiquitous peacock on Mrs. McIntyre's farm.
- why does Flannery O'Connor allow so many of her characters in this story to speak truths aloud, then remain ignorant of these truths' applications to themselves?
- what motivates the actions of the eighty-year-old priest?
- how does the final "vision" of Mrs. Shortley (305, 318) differ from those that precede it (291, 300, 301-302)?
- what type of value system does Mrs. McIntyre use to justify her actions throughout this story?
- when the Priest claims "'He came to redeem us'" (317), is he speaking of either Mr. Guizac or Jesus Christ?
![An arch and several buildings and the sky is a greenish blue color](FO_image_150.jpg)
On Paranoiac Critical Town (1936)
oil on canvas
Salvador Dalí
Dr. Paul Marchbanks
pmarchba@calpoly.edu