Campus Location

Abilene Campus (Residential)

Date of Award

5-2020

Document Type

Thesis

Department

Literature

Degree Name

Master of Arts

Committee Chair or Primary Advisor

Matthew Todd Womble

Second Committee Member or Secondary Advisor

Debbie Williams

Third Committee Member or Committee Reader

Dana McMichael

Abstract

Flannery O’Connor once wrote, “every writer, when he speaks of his own approach to fiction, hopes to show that in some crucial and deep sense, he is a realist” (MM 37). In O’Connor’s short stories she depicts her observations, with a particular eye for regional manners, of the American South and the culture of Southern hospitality. Hospitality as a culture is present within Jacques Derrida’s work, he hypothesized hospitality in two factions: conditional and unconditional. Conditional hospitality functions as a performative contradiction, leaving hospitality inherently connected with its opposite, which is hostility. Any time conditional hospitality is given to a guest and enacted by the host, hostility is incorporated within that action, creating a systemic power control between host and guest. Derrida’s notion of unconditional hospitality is separate from this created power control of conditional hospitality; however, he cannot demonstrate the reins of unconditional hospitality. Derrida believes unconditional hospitality is not fully understood and is out of our reach of comprehension. With O’Connor’s keen observance of manners and the culture of Southern hospitality, this project explores encounters in her short stories that express the manners of Southern hospitality as conditional, examining if the specific gestures creates division between and further divides insiders and outsiders. More specifically, the encounters within her works will be examined to identify the masking hostility towards her characters, in order to maintain control within gender/class, race, and religion. This project will also examine if O’Connor’s works present a new 2 narrative against conditional hospitality and a viable depiction of unconditional hospitality through grace.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.

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