The Violent Bear It Away

Destiny and free will are two of O’Connor’s chief preoccupations. Although the road Tarwater travels toward his destiny is full of twists, each decision and series of events contributes to bringing about his fate as a prophet. The forces that propel him forward are multitudinous and may include Mason’s influence, inherited mental illness, the brushes with violence caused by the Devil, Rayber’s ineffectiveness as a mentor, and finally God when he finally speaks to Tarwater at the end of the novel.

Complicating the implacable march of destiny is that, of all the characters, Tarwater may be the only one who at least appears to possess free will. Mason is a slave to premonition and prophecy, whether they are true acts of God or simply manifestations of mental illness. Rayber is so paralyzed by inaction and a fear of irrationality that he almost never succeeds in imposing his will on any situation or individual. Bishop is too limited in his intellectual capacities to do anything more than react. By contrast, Tarwater repeatedly invokes variations of the phrase “I can act” (80). Despite spending much of the novel in a state of indecision, the boy indeed appears to impose his will at various intervals, from