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March 8, 2006
O'Connor "A Temple of the Holy Ghost"
O'Connor, '''A Temple of the Holy Ghost'' -- Jerz: American Lit II (EL 267)
"The child decided, after observing them for a few hours, that they were practically morons and she was glad to think that they were second cousins and she couldn't have inherited any of their stupidity."
Interesting that "the child" doesn't have a name. Obviously she is young and yet intelligent. I'm guessing her age around 7-9 however not sure. But she considers herself as a relative but distant and that she did not acquire Joanne's or Susans stupidity and called them morons. Her age is technically told when she ask the "Temple one" and "Temple two" (Joanne & Susan). Joanne and Susan told her what they meant by the "you-know-what" thinking "the child" knew how rabbits were born. This is funny "They spit them out of their mouth" "six of them". Even though she made this up I am assuming that they believed her. Interesting to note is that the "Temple One and "Temple two" meaning that their body was the temple of the holy spirit and that they nun told them to say no to intercourse. Good advise however Joanne and Susan obviously were not intelligent nor acted their age. Girls around their age do not dress up and look at themselves in the mirror. Usually, little kids do this. Maybe that's why "the child" saw them as foolish and morons because she realized they were acting like little girls and not teenagers.
Posted by LisaRandolph at March 8, 2006 10:41 AM
Comments
I can't believe how these two girls acted. They seemed to me to be Devil children. i guess if you would look were they came from and how they were brought up that would have alot to do with it.
Posted by: Melissa Lupari at March 20, 2006 11:19 AM
Nice observation Lisa. These children do seem to spawn from pure evil. What I don't understand is what is O' Connor trying to teach us about religion as a whole? She's headed in a completely different direction that I find myself being confused about. Why are the children not focused on the seriousness of religion? Why do they seem so evil? Questions, Questions....
Posted by: Jason Pugh at March 23, 2006 10:41 AM
I'm french and I've read this short-story. you're right Melissa. Is Flannery O'Connor making a criticism about catholicism or just showing us that it existed Devil children?
Posted by: mel at April 1, 2006 3:49 AM
O'Connor was herself catholic, so I don't think she was necessarily criticising catholicism. I think more likely, she was trying to communicate the idea that sexuality is holy. The hermaphrodite in the tent solemnly proclaimed that his/her condition is the act of God-In a larger sense, showing that sex as a whole is likewise something that is ordained by God. The two frivolous teenage girls treat sex as a joke, and don't understand this message, and are portrayed unsympathetically by O'Connor.
Posted by: CW at July 24, 2006 7:51 PM
Flannery O'Connor is having fun with what it means to be a Temple of the Holy Spirit. She loves Catholicism, but sees where its teachings fall short.
Read this story alongside Philip Roth's "The Conversion of the Jews." Catholicism is essentially a faith that hates the flesh, despises its needs and tries to spiritualize everything. This doesn't work. It will never work. We are spirit and flesh, and children are engaged in the quest of discovering integration, much to their formal teachers' dismay.
These are not Devil children; they are the soul's intuitive self that alone should be our guide.
Dale
Posted by: Dale Beaulieu at May 7, 2007 11:40 AM
Dale, you got the whole story and the Catholic worldview backwards.
O'Connor IS making fun of the nun's teaching, which has at its core the truth ("You are a Temple of the Holy Ghost") but reduces it to mere sexuality, specifically, the possibility for sexual sin. Read "The Habit of Being" for her numerous and scathing attacks on the state of Catholic education.
I don't think that O'Conner would be calling the girls--Temple One and Temple Two--devil children. They're just silly teenage girls.
The point of the hermaphrodite at the circus is to throw the nun's (and a lot of Catholics') oversimplification of things on its head.
If the hermaphrodite was a human being made in the image of God (as O'Connor would empathatically say), he/she must ALSO be "a Temple of the Holy Ghost" as much as the two sex-crazed girls are. In other words, possessing a physical body IS a good, dignified, God-given thing, and it means something more than just possessing the possibility of sexual sin.
Read "Parker's Back." O'Connor said of this story that the real heretic is Sarah, for insisting that God is pure spirit, thus denying the Incarnation.
Hardly "a faith that hates the flesh, despises its needs, and tries to spiritualize everything."
Posted by: Leeandra at June 5, 2007 7:03 PM