There are so many things to comment on in this story, I am not even sure where to begin!
I was not sure who was who in this story even after reading the beginning three times. So, I tried to make a family tree, after I read the part about the accident and how Old Tarwater became the "guardian" of the boy. "Try" being the key word here. I keep having trouble filling it in because the family situation in each generation is so similar, that I keep getting myself confused. I usually think of myself as a pretty good close reader, and I know O'Connor is a great writer who puts everything in her stories for a reason and is not prone to just throwing things in her story, so I think this means that this confusion is purposeful. Now my question is why was I confused, and what is O'Connor accomplishing by confusing me?
The first question is easy to answer. I think my confusion comes from the fact that the schoolteacher is the boy's uncle and Old Tarwater is the schoolteacher's uncle, and Old Tarwater kidnapped both boys when they were little. I was also confused because the schoolteacher took care of the boy for awhile. I also find it very coincidental that the women that are mentioned in this story are both "whores." Both the schoolteacher's mother (Old Tarwater's sister) and the schoolteacher's sister (the boy's mother) are referred to whores and they both die in the same accident. I think. This is the point I am most confused on, because it says, "The two of them [his own mother and grandmother], along with his grandfather, had been killed in an automobile crash, leaving only the schoolteacher alive in that family, and Tarwater himself, for his mother (unmarried and shameless) had lived just long enough after the crash for him to be born. He had been born at the scene of the wreck" (355). The women are not named in this story, which also complicates things, and we do not get a big enough picture of them to actually construct an image of what they are like in our heads. I think I am also confused because when O'Connor says, "nephew," I am not totally sure if she is referring to the schoolteacher who is the nephew of Old Tarwater or the boy who is the nephew of both men. Also, they all could be called Tarwater, and O'Connor varies what she calls each man enough that it gets a little confusing. For instance, the old man is sometimes Old Tarwater, or the old man, or just Tarwater, or the great uncle. I don't expect O'Connor to use the same name each time, but I think the way that she varies the names says something about what is going on in this story. The sudden shifts in tenses also got to me as well.
Another thing that was confusing at the beginning was who is the stranger's voice? I think it might be the new "rebirthed" boy, but I am not sure. "Rebirth" seems to be a big theme in this story. Everyone is running around trying to baptize everyone else. But yet, the boy's biggest rebirth and experience comes from his great uncle dying and the boy's running away (It is amazing to me how many people in these stories try to run away from everything in their cars, only to be worse off or in the same place as they were before...but that is another post altogether).
The hardest question I am trying to muddle through is what this story accomplishes by confusing me (and making me draw graphs and charts). For me, this confusion leads me to believe that not a whole lot has changed in this family from generation to generation, and I started to draw connections between the schoolteacher and the boy. A lot of my confusion started to lift in the second chapter once we started learning more about their family and the backstory, but I think it says something the way we were left confused for about twenty or thirty pages before things started to (somewhat) fall into place.
(Sorry for all the confusion!)
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I know! I had to draw out a little tree for myself:) But instead of carefully considering to what purpose I was frustrated (like you did--kudos to the careful reader!), I just moved on.
It does remind me though of other novels in which a name is repeated in a family tree: specifically, the story reminded me powerfully of Wuthering Heights. The name Catherine is used for both mother and daughter, and every time I read it, I have to keep reminding myself how each person is related to the others. But I think your point about the purpose of this confusion applies to Wuthering Heights as well: generational mirroring becomes an important theme since the plot includes kidnapping and anxiety over who will be allowed to raise and influence a child. The confusion heightens the emphasis on the cyclical nature of generations.
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