The Violent Bear It Away

As Tarwater enters the homestretch on his collision course with destiny, it appears at the moment that the Devil has conquered the influence of Mason—and he’s done so with far greater effectiveness than Rayber, who is sidelined for the remainder of the book. When Tarwater recalls the moment of Bishop’s drowning, the friend is seen capitalizing on the boy’s strong need to act. O’Connor writes, “No finaler act than this, his friend said. In dealing with the dead you have to act” (214). Once again, O’Connor depicts Tarwater’s actions as a perversion of free will in that while his actions may seem impetuous or self-driven, they are the consequence of cosmic forces beyond his control. To act or not to act—the chief distinction between Tarwater and Rayber—is thus seen as a false dichotomy. Both strategies lead the men down roads of ruin.

The Devil, however, isn’t done with Tarwater. Having corrupted the boy’s soul, Satan proceeds to corrupt his body as well by placing the rapist in his path. A secular reading of the text suggests that the sexual assault that takes place in the woods is simply a senseless act of violence, unrelated to the cosmic battle over Tarwater’s soul. Yet violence in O’Connor’s work is rarely as senseless as it seems. In a letter, O’Connor explicitly states that the Devil is “actualized in the man who gives Tarwater the lift toward the end.” (O’Connor, Flannery. The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O’Connor. New York: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux. 1988.) Beyond this letter, there is evidence in the text to suggest that the rapist is literally and figuratively demonic. At that point in the novel, Tarwater has not spoken to his friend since the night before, and the boy “hungered now for companionship as much as food and water” (226). In an odd way, Tarwater misses the friend who led him down a path of destruction. In the moment of expressing this longing, the rapist approaches and picks him up off the side of the road.

If the rapist is indeed the Devil, then the attack can and should be read symbolically. One possible interpretation is that the rape is a tactical attempt to further distance Tarwater from his origins and thus also his destiny as a prophet. The assault corrupts Tarwater’s body and the very ancestral ground on which he is raised. As the boy takes stock of his surroundings upon waking up after the rape, “It was the road home, ground that had been familiar to him since his infancy but now it looked like strange and alien country” (234). The extent to which the land is now corrupted for Tarwater is reflected in the boy’s compulsion to burn the trees and bushes behind him as he approaches Powderhead.

Yet the two acts of violence conjured by the Devil—first the drowning of Bishop and second the rape of Tarwater—fail to throw the boy off his divine path toward exaltation as a prophet. The question that then arises is whether Tarwater embraces his fate despite the Devil’s works or because of them. Given the symbolic resonance of the title and O’Connor’s own beliefs about violence and grace—as detailed earlier in the guide—it is conceivable that this violence brings forth Tarwater’s final revelation. It is worth revisiting McRobie’s analysis that states, in O’Connor’s work, “violence was a way of preparing characters for their moment of ‘grace.’” (McRobie, Heather. “Is Flannery O’Connor a Catholic Writer?” The Guardian. 22 Apr. 2009.) The sense of duality that pervades the novel is key to this interpretation, which suggests that Bishop’s baptism could not have occurred without his drowning, and that Tarwater’s revelation could not have come without his rape.

Of course, the true moment of revelation does not visit Tarwater until he discovers that Mason achieved his Christian burial after all. To Tarwater, this is nothing short of a miracle, recalling visions of crowds of men and women sharing in the bread of life, the loaves Jesus multiplied to feed the hungry. This poses a challenge to more cosmic readings of the book in that it hinges Tarwater’s entire destiny and conversion on a simple yet profound act of kindness—Buford burying Mason—by a character that barely warrants consideration to the protagonist. From this perspective, the story is not a triumph of destiny but rather one of simple human decency. That isn’t to say that O’Connor’s exploration of fate and cosmic forces is intended to be dismissed outright. Rather, this turn of events simply emphasizes how acts of kindness and compassion, performed freely, are as big a factor in shaping one’s destiny as God, the Devil, or the ravings of a prophet.