The Symbiotic Relationship of Violence and Grace
             "Extending reality outward until it embraced religious mystery," says Gilbert H. Muller (56), is something that Flannery O'Connor did with extraordinary finesse. The mystery of grace captivated her and she used violence to shock both her characters and readers into making a decision about grace. O'Connor used "violence to illustrate the pointlessness of a purely secular world and the indispensable need of God to correct the absurdity of man's condition. Violence permits the individual to undergo remarkable transformations (Muller 93)," which we see very clearly in her writings. In each work, the violence of love is synonymous with faith and it becomes clear that it is God's love, which allows grace to enter in.
             The purpose of violence throughout O'Connor's stories is not obvious to the naked eye; you have to delve deeper in order to see more than just the entertaining story, to see the truth behind the fiction. As James Grimshaw states, "grotesqueness and violence lead inevitably to an opportunity for revelation and Grace (37)," and so it is for the main characters in Greenleaf, Everything that Rises must Converge, and Revelation. In Greenleaf, Mrs. May's hideousness is revealed to the reader through the description of her appearance, and her single mindedness. Her eyes cannot see beyond her present surroundings and thus she is missing the gift of grace. Violence is needed since she is estranged from both community and grace (Muller 76) and in order to present her with opportunity for a revelation, hence the shockingly gory death of Mrs. May. During this scene, the eyes of her soul are opened and while Mr. Greenleaf is shooting the bull and the force of the bullets are raking the beasts' body, she has her moment of revelation. For Julian's mother, in Everything that Rises must Converge, the epiphany...