"TAN" Post-Class Thoughts

I had hoped to post this before class today, but my Internet was down. Here are some thoughts on "The Artificial Nigger" that have come up in my research.

A source for my paper is the book "Return to Good and Evil: Flannery O'Connor's Response to Nihilism." One chapter is devoted to "TAN," and it turns out it's one of O'Connor's favorite stories.

Some of the interesting insights this book brings to light are O'Connor's comments on the deliberate manner in which she reduced Mr. Head to the state he was in when he and Nelson encountered the lawn jockey. "It would be a kind of moral and spiritual shortcut for him to regain his frail confidence simply because he had found the train station again; and so, the brief light in Mr. Head's mood is instantly redarkened by the reminder of what Nelson has suffered because of his grandfather's Judas-like betrayal. His grandfather is in misery, but a misery that is preparing him for grace." (O'Connor herself also likens his denial of Nelson to Peter's denial of Jesus.)

The statue itself represents redemption, which for O'Connor is an ongoing process, not just a theological concept. "The suffering of ordinary men and women extends the redemptive grace of Christ's own suffering, not because such suffering is efficacious in itself, but because it helps release the work of the original redemptive suffering of Jesus."

In likening Mr. Head to Peter, he must be brought to "abject humiliation," which is the only way he can be ready to receive such grace. Otherwise, that "degree of self-knowledge ... might have crushed him had he not been able to respond with humility. The grace is a work of redemption flowing from the suffering represented by the black man's tortured past..."

In keeping with O'Connor's desire to write about the dragon, "Mr. Head realizes that his own goodness has largely been an illusion, but until the illusion is dispelled, he is unable to receive the mercy he so badly needs."