Everything that increases must are coming breaking

Short History

In Anything that Rises need to Converge Flannery O Connor compares the robustness of various methods of maintaining identity. Both the identity schemas being in contrast are the ones from Julian, the highly individualistic, cerebral key character great mother, a condescending The southern part of woman clinging to her falling social position. By focusing on the ongoing conflict between these types of characters type of self-identification To Connor implies that they are mutually destructive to one another, but that Julians much more robust since it is built on an internal self-concept rather than a need to reference external concepts just like class and family history.

Julians mom reveals her methods of building identity by simply constantly orienting herself relative to the lifestyle and record around her, which your woman takes totally for granted. The lady blindly takes on the ethnic stereotypes that she feels are appropriate with her perceived place in society, also going so far as to suggest that the old ways of slavery had been a more suitable state to the present racial facts. This shows that her identification is tied up to the lifestyle of the old South and she is thus unable to react appropriately to alter in this tradition. Her responses to Julian reflect her preoccupation together with the past, in her look at going to Grandpas when [she] was a girl and the beauty of the Godhigh family. Julians critical thoughts are immediately antagonistic to her self-concept, wonderful reminders that the Godhigh estate is now inhabited by negroes and that their particular neighborhood features long seeing that faded in reputation supply the reader insight into the level to which his mothers self-identity is deluded and outdated. His unsaid comments on her gaudy head wear, a symbol of her deluded notion of self-importance, function in the same manner. As a result, when Julians mother recognizes the same head wear on a dark-colored woman U Connor uses the moment as a triggering level for Julian to release an harm on his moms self-concept in order to bring her down a notch by making use of reality like a reference instead of the constructs of culture and family history. This kind of attack comes in the form of him speaking his brain and sharing with her bluntly, you arent who you imagine you are. This understanding quite virtually destroys her, because it holes down her self-concept totally by invalidating the constructs it is based on.

To Connor permits Julian to win out in the final collide in order to present that his view that true culture is in the brain results in a much more resilient self-concept. Julian understands that it is regardless of his education, his competition, his traditions and his mom that he’s who he could be, and not because of them. His independent self-concept allows him to evaluate reality without being blinded by tradition and cultural assumptions, and thus he would not have the problems with covering societal turn into his identity that his mother has to face. Nevertheless, while Julians self-concept can be robust enough to survive the storys last climactic clash, it is not unaffected by his mothers other means of id formation. Could the final collide we get a feeling of deeply seated guilt for feeling this sort of condescension to his mom, hence everything that gave her pleasure was small and depressed him. This depression that he seems arises from the guilt he experiences every time he pulls a little part of the square area rug from underneath his mothers sense of self by criticizing the cultural criteria by which she identifies himself. Thus, at the end of the story, when he brings the remainder from the rug in its entirety, he is remaining at the precipice of a world of guilt and sorrow.

Thus, the storyline harshly describes the potential destruction that identification schemas may inflict on one another. Since readers were made mindful of the potential for a clashing of identities in just about any relationship, and this awareness is usually further improved by making the clash so pronounced that you self actually conquers one other and pains itself in the process. This gives out a sensation that whilst our values may be that someones identity formation strategies are flawed relative to our very own, engaging their particular self-concept directly can result in harm on both sides rather than a solution.