“I owe my existence and cheerful countenance to the pituitary glands of thousands of pigs butchered daily in Chicago, Illinois at the Armour packing plant.”
This quote from Flannery O’Connor appears after the end-credits of the new film Wildcat, directed by Ethan Hawke and starring his daughter Maya Hawke as O’Connor. In a sense, it is a fitting end to the movie. O’Connor is referencing the medication—made with pig hormones—that she took to treat lupus, the disease with which she suffered during her most literarily productive years and which ultimately killed her at age 39. The film is mostly concerned with the period of O’Connor’s life some twelve years before her death, immediately following her diagnosis with lupus, when she was forced to come to grips with the fact that hers would not be a life lived among the New York literati, but would instead be spent back home in Georgia, in close quarters with her well-intentioned but not always understanding mother, Regina (played by Laura Linney).
Readers of O’Connor who are concerned that the movie might downplay the author’s religious convictions, or the way in which these convictions animated her writing, should rest assured—O’Connor’s faith is very much front-and-center in this movie.
“Oh dear God, I want to write a novel, a good novel,” she prays, kneeling in church. It is a quotation from her Prayer Journal, written while she was a student at the University of Iowa. Her faith is a source of strength and inspiration as she toils away on her early drafts of her novel; at the same time, it keeps her out-of-step with the secular sophisticates of the literary world. At a party hosted by poet (and, in the film, love interest) Robert “Cal” Lowell, we get Flannery’s famous defense of the Eucharist (“Well, if it’s a symbol, to hell with it”).
O’Connor’s faith and how it informed her work are at the heart of Wildcat; the film’s dramatic climax is when O’Connor embraces both the sufferings imposed on her by her illness—physical suffering, but also disappointment and loneliness—as well as her vocation as a writer. The entire movie builds to the moment of O’Connor’s realization that her writing is her vocation—that she has an obligation to use the talents God gave her to reveal to her readers the truth she sees about His grace. The scene ends with her bowing her head as she prepares to receive the sacrament of confession.
Maya Hawke gives a moving performance as a young woman watching her personal and professional horizons seemingly contract before her very eyes. Much of her dialogue is taken directly from O’Connor’s letters (published posthumously in the collection The Habit of Being), but Hawke’s O’Connor lacks the incisive wit and innate sense of the absurd with which the author’s letters and stories overflow. While O’Connor’s writing is often hilarious, the quip about the pigs’ pituitary glands is one of the film’s few humorous moments. This is not too surprising given the focus on this particular period in O’Connor’s life, an emotional and spiritual low point before she comes into her own as a writer. Hawke is compelling as the young Flannery, frustrated with her failing health and impatient with the limitations of the people around her.
Less successful than its depiction of O’Connor herself are the film’s renditions of several of her stories, which are interspersed throughout the movie. These vignettes are more bleak and far less funny than their source material. The oddness of her characters is muted, and while there is plenty of grittiness, the on-screen interpretations lack the gut-punch impact of O’Connor’s originals.
The decision to have the stories performed by the same cast as the biographical narrative sometimes throws the stories off-balance; the viewer is tempted to view the characters played by Hawke as either stand-ins for O’Connor, or as the stories’ focal points. The result is a version of “Parker’s Back” in which Sarah Ruth is the most vivid character, and a take on “The Life You Save May Be Your Own” that centers Lucynell while sidelining Shiftlet. These may be interesting interpretations, but they do not do justice to O’Connor’s original vision.
Despite these weaknesses, Wildcat is a loving depiction of O’Connor’s struggle to find her voice as a writer while remaining true to her faith in a time of great personal suffering. The film shows her spiritual growth playing out alongside her literary development, within the context of her acceptance of increasing physical pain.
Wildcat closes just as Flannery begins to use these constraints as fuel for her literary art, coupling them with her characteristic mordant humor to produce some of the most memorable characters and bracing stories in American fiction.
• Related at CWR: “A good biopic is hard to find, but Wildcat artfully delivers” (April 28, 2024) by Andrew Petiprin
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I’ve tried reading stuff by Flannery O’Connor. I don’t get it. It seems “bleak” to me. Any suggestions? I generally enjoy all kinds of books–currently trying to read all of Dicken’s works (right now, I’m halfway through David Copperfield). I also love reading juvenile fiction (e.g., Elizabeth Enright, Mildred D. Taylor, Laura Ingalls Wilder, etc.) and juvenile mysteries series (“Carolyn Keene”, Troy Nesbit, etc.). But Flannery O’Connor just doesn’t appeal to me for some reason. I also have not been able to get into Toni Morrison, in spite of all the rave reviews and accolades. I do read a lot of books (non-fiction and fiction) about WWII history and the Holocaust (my family has German ancestry). Any thoughts about why I don’t like Ms. Flannery’s books? Is there anyone else who feels like I do? BTW, I don’t like Chesterton’s books either–those long sentences lose me!
I’m with you, Sharon. Never got into O’Connor or Chesterton. I refuse to be shamed into trying to read an author whose writing doesn’t appeal to me. I’d prefer to read Baudelaire in the French than these. I steer clear of literary snobs; life’s too short.
Who’s shaming anyone? I don’t quite get the comment.
Flannery and G.K. were huge influences on me as I made my way toward and into the Catholic Church, but for very different reasons. I first read Flannery when I was 20 years old, taking a class in Christian literature at Briercrest Bible College (class was taught by an Anglican, an exceptional professor). It simply hit me in the gut, and the best way I can put it is that her sacramental vision made sense to me. Having been raised in a Fundamentalist setting in a small town in Montana, I “got” a lot of her depictions of eccentric and wild characters. That certainly won’t be true for all readers, which I understand and respect. As for Chesterton, while I like some of his fiction, it was his apologetics (Orthodoxy, Everlasting Man, What’s Wrong With the World, etc.) that resonated with me. As it turns out, I began reading Chesterton, Walker Percy, Newman, and early Church Fathers all within a couple of months of each other. A heady brew.
In my experience, “snobs” don’t tend to cite Flannery and certainly not Chesterton, who is still considered low brow by the “smart” set. Whatever. I love Bach and Mozart, and I listen to lots of jazz, and I also like ABBA, Lovebites, and The Warning. Good is simply good!
Amen, Brother.
I wasn’t implying at all that any “literature shaming” was occurring on this site. Some writers, I acknowledge, appeal to some but not to others. Because one states preferences doesn’t mean a dismissal of those whose preferences are otherwise. And, besides, I’m pleased to hear that both O’Connor and Chesterton were instrumental in explicating the faith to you; the Church is enriched by your being part of it.
I couldn’t agree more, and stumbling on the work of both of them influenced me in my journey from atheism to faith many years ago. Chesterton has been the inspiration of many Catholic essayists for his paradoxical style, which is only appropriate for Christian apologists since Our Lord was often paradoxical. Truth cuts across the grain of our vanity. And O’Connor could illustrate that divinity can be found where we
least expect it, even in the most fractured of lives. It’s a mystery why any Catholic would draw a pass on them.
As to snobbery, in my college years I listened to my J.S. Bach in peace, with a headset, yet my boomer contemporaries were pretty snobby towards me for not indulging acid rock.
I “get” Flannery O’Connor & love her stories but I hear you. Everyone is different & has differing likes & dislikes. If we were all the same the world would be a boring place.
Because I’m Southern I’m guessing it helps me relate to Flannery’s settings & dialogues. I’ve heard virtually the same sorts of conversations in rural doctor’s offices, feed stores, & home extension meetings. She had a great ear for that. Thankfully these days the racial slurs spoken by characters in her stories have mostly become a passing generational thing. Young people don’t care much about that anymore.
This past weekend I was at a meeting & listened to an older member of the Sons of the Confederacy relate how his DNA test had came back with African ancestry. It was no big deal to him or anyone else there. Times have changed & for the better I think.
I get her too, and I’m not southern, but I like reading writers from the south: I love/d Faulkner for his ‘southerness.’ And Margaret Mitchell! Who doesn’t like her ‘stuff’.
Yes, Faulkner is great, too. I’m sure every part of the world has its own sort of Gothic stories but when I read Faulkner or Flannery O’Connor I’m actually reminded of real life events and neighbors. Which sounds pretty odd, but it’s true. The South might be less affluent but it’s never been boring.
I like Margaret Mitchell also. I remember reading that she grew up listening to old veterans of the War and used those reminiscences in GWTW.
“Any suggestions?”
Here’s one idea: start with her non-fiction. The collection Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose is one of the best books ever written about writing, creativity, and a Catholic understanding of literary art. It’s brilliant. That might open the door to some of her fictional work, which can be very startling and even off-putting for some readers. I found that attractive when I first read work as a young (20) Evangelical, but it’s not for everyone.
Sharon,
What have you read by O’Connor? What made it “bleak”?
Her fiction and her letters occasionally scintillate with beams of grotesquery, hilarity or irony. One of her great quotes: “I don’t deserve any credit for turning the other cheek as my tongue is always in it.”
More:
“I haven’t read Pere Teilhard yet so I don’t know whether I agree with you or not on The Phenomenon of Man. In any case, I doubt very much if his researches are a product of the ‘Jesuit mind.’ Some of the severest criticism I have read about it has come from other Jesuits.”
“Purity is the twentieth centuries [sic] dirty word but it is the most mysterious of the virtues and not to be discussed in a light fashion even with ones [sic] own and surely not with strangers.”
“About the talks…I have made two….one was to the local college on The Novel—-400 girls who don’t know a novel from a hole in the head and were very impressed with everything I said and would have been if I had said the opposite.”
“You haven’t convinced me that I write with the devil’s will…and I’m prepared to argue some more with you on this….we can’t agree on this [is] because there is a difference in our two devils. My devil has a name, a history and a definite plan. His name is Lucifer, he’s a fallen angel, his sin is pride, and his aim is the destruction of the Divine plan. Now I judge that your devil is co-equal to God, not his creature; that pride is his virtue, not his sin; and that his aim is not to destroy the Divine plan because there isn’t any Divine plan to destroy.”
She describes her faith: “I believe what the Church teaches—-that God has given us reason to use and that it can lead us toward a knowlege [sic*] of him, through analogy; that he has revealed himself in history and continues to do so through the Church, and that he is present (not just symbolically) in the Eucharist on our altars. To believe all this I don’t take any leap into the absurd. I find it reasonable to believe, even though these beliefs are beyond reason.”
*She admits, in another letter, that she cannot spell.
Did you find any of the above to be bleak? Curious that you like Dickens; I find much of his writing to be ‘bleak’! He even used that word in one of his book titles.
About the Eucharist, and possibly a good banner for the Eucharistic Revival in Indianapolis, O’Connor also said: “If it’s just a symbol, to hell with it.”
I agree. Best quote ever.
🙂
Better than anyone I have read, Flannery O’Connor conveyed the realism of our devastatingly fallen nature ( e.g., terrible events can happen to holy, saintly individuals and/or their families), and the capacity for grace to yet be communicated through that nature despite anguish and trauma.
“The River” and “A Good Man is Hard to Find” literally shocked me, at a time of such personal trauma that confirmed for me man’s severely wounded nature, much more than other authors or sentimental homilies offered amid post-conciliar optimism and naïveté. I am ever grateful to Miss O’Connor for assisting me on the path to Catholic Realism.
Also G. K. Chesterton, relevant as ever today, saw the whole picture from above the various personal philosophies of the 20th century, analogous to the Gospel of John providing a type of commentary on the synoptics. It was he who allowed me to first realize that the only way to measure progress is from a fixed standard, i.e., an eternal, revealed “Truth” (Jn 14:6) about man.