Tag Archives: The Violent Bear It Away

As I am reading Flannery O’ Connor’s The Violent Bear It Away, I have been taking notes on passages that strike me for various reasons. Some of them due to mere form, eloquence, and technique; others for their significance to the characters and story. As I compile this unofficial collection, I will occasionally post some to this blog. Upon entering the city, our protagonist reflects on the hustle and bustle.

The City:

Before coming to the city, he had read facts in the almanac and knew that there were 75,000 people here who were seeing him for the first time. He wanted to stop and shake hands with each of them and say his name was F. M. Tarwater and that he was here only for the day to accompany his uncle on business at a lawyer’s. His head jerked backwards after each passing figure until they began to pass too thickly and he observed that their eyes didn’t grab at you like the eyes of country people. Several people bumped into him and this contact that should have made an acquaintance for life, made nothing because the hulks shoved on with ducked heads and muttered apologies that he would have accepted if they had waited.

- Flannery O’Connor, The Violent Bear It Away.

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