The Coming of Christ
“The Displaced Person” by Flannery O’Connor
“ ‘I heard her say, “This is going to put the Fear of the Lord into those shiftless niggers!”’Mrs. Shortley said in a ringing tone” (O’Connor 204).
By now we have all figured out that Flannery O’Connor uses Biblical allusions to support the overall message of her stories. So I thought I’d try my hand at some Biblically inspired interpretation.
The arrival of the Guizacs is a comparison to Mary and Joseph’s arrival in Bethlehem right before Jesus was born. Like the Guizacs, Mary and Joseph were displaced, leaving their home at Nazareth to travel to a town they knew very little of. When they arrived in Bethlehem, the inns were full of even more displaced people. The Guizacs were also entering a unknown locale full of “ten million billion [people] pushing their way into new places.” Mary and Joseph are left to sleep in a makeshift room in a stable. The Guizacs are housed in a makeshift shack, decorated with whatever could “be scraped together,” at some far end of the property.
Now one may ask where the star is that guided the shepherds and kings to come see the baby Jesus. Remember at the beginning when Mrs. Shortley “ignored the white afternoon sun” that was directly over the approaching Guizacs? That sun represents the bright star over Bethlehem. Mrs. Shortley even imagines herself as “a giant angel with wings as wide as a house, telling the Negroes that they would have to find another place” just like the angels bidding the shepherds to Bethlehem. Unfortunately, just as Mrs. Shortley ignored the sun, she also ignores the significance of the arrival of the displaced person (ie. Jesus).
Mr. Guizac, who is not surprisingly a carpenter, comes along and works the land in ways no one else has done. Mrs. McIntyre even proclaims, “ ‘That man is my salvation! ’” He, in Mrs. Shortley’s words would “put the Fear of the Lord” in all of them.
If you were trying to look up my quote using the page number listed and realized it does not correspond with your book you should assume with have two different books. Mine is an older collection and the pages are not the same as the newer collection. Here is the bibliographical information for my book just so you know:
O’Connor, Flannery. “A Good Man is Hard to Find and Other Stories.” Harcourt Brace Jovanovich: San Diego and New York 1983.
Wow. Congrats to you for really digging into the story. I have to say, your entry really helped me understand more of the biblical ideas in the story, especially since I'm not very familiar with the Bible. I mean, of course I know the basics of it, but I have to say, your entry helped me understand it more. :)