Letter: Flannery O'Connor to William Sessions (p. 1043)

I was very interested in Flannery O'Connor's letter to William Sessions dated 27 September, 1957 (p. 1043). In the letter she talks about the censorship of books that have been labeled obscene. She comes at the topic from a fairly objective point of view, which surprised me. I can imagine that some of her short stories might have been labeled obscene as well, and that she might be against such outlooks. She also mentions the moral code or conventions that determine what is classified as obscene: “There was a hearing and it turned out the gentlemen had read only the obscene parts; asked when something was obscene they said it was obscene when it couldn’t be read before a lady” (p. 1044). I found two things really interesting about this quote. Firstly, O’Connor emphasizes that a member of the counsel had not read the piece as a whole, and was solely condemning it on the basis of certain sections. This sort of piece-meal way of looking at a work is not as popular today, in which many works are judged by their overall message. Secondly, she notes the relation of the censorship code to social norms, in which, women are presumed to read only materials that are deemed “fit” for them.