Episode 11: Everything That Rises Must Converge: Coming Together May be Harder than it Seems - Flannery O’Connor

In this episode of Hot Takes on the Classics, Tim McIntosh and Emily Maeda explore Flannery O’Connor’s “Everything That Rises Must Converge,” a story of young adulthood, race, pride, dependence, and painful moral awakening. Set largely on a city bus, the story brings Julian, a self-consciously progressive college graduate, into collision with his cheerful but deeply prejudiced mother as the changing South forces people who would rather remain separate into uncomfortable proximity. Along the way, Tim and Emily consider O’Connor’s grotesque humor, her idea of dark grace, the story’s title from Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, and the devastating moment when Julian’s superiority gives way to guilt and sorrow.

Episode Outline

Young adulthood and the idea that adulthood begins when other people can depend on youThe bus as a confined social space where strangers, classes, and racial tensions are forced togetherFlannery O’Connor’s Georgia upbringing, Iowa Writers’ Workshop years, illness, and return to AndalusiaO’Connor’s mastery of the short story, grotesque imagery, and moments of “dark grace”Recurring O’Connor figures: dependent mothers, educated young adults, racial conflict, and moral self-deceptionPierre Teilhard de Chardin and the phrase “everything that rises must converge”Julian as an educated, progressive, frustrated young writer who still depends on his motherJulian’s mother as cheerful, sacrificial, socially proud, and deeply shaped by racist assumptionsThe extravagant hat as a symbol of distinction that unexpectedly reveals common humanityJulian’s performative solidarity on the integrated bus and his mother’s condescending friendlinessThe matching hats, the penny, the blow from the purse, and the story’s violent moment of convergenceJulian’s final dark grace: the collapse of superiority and his entry into “the world of guilt and sorrow”Key Topics & Takeaways

Adulthood as Dependability: Julian has graduated from college and thinks of himself as intellectually mature, yet he still lives with and depends upon the mother he treats with contempt. The episode’s opening definition of adulthood shifts attention from independence alone to becoming someone on whom others can depend.Convergence and Common Humanity: The bus, the shared stop, and especially the identical hats repeatedly collapse the distinctions the characters try to preserve. O’Connor turns Teilhard de Chardin’s hopeful image of convergence into a painful encounter with the fact that human beings sha