A Reading of Flannery O’Connors “Everything that Rises Must Converge”

Abstract

Everything that rises must converge is a short story which, without the aid of suspense that is often provoked in fiction by actions hanging on a bare thread in a whirling plot of intertwining – and perhaps incredible – events, catches the reader‟s attention until the very last word. The plot of the story could not be any simpler; a young bachelor takes his overweight mother by bus to a „reducing class‟ but before they reach the place the mother changes her mind, heads back home, has a stroke and is left by her helpless son dying or maybe dead as he goes to seek help. But parallel to the plot of events is a “plot" of revelation; as the insignificantly banal happenings take place, an unfolding of character slowly emerges before the reader‟s eyes.