The Violent Bear It Away

O’Connor’s work is consistently rich with religious symbolism and allusions, and The Violent Bear It Away is no exception. A lifelong Catholic, O’Connor uses literature to explore her own ideas about God and faith through her characters, even though many of them—including Mason and Tarwater—are given to senseless violence and hypocrisy. This relationship between violence and grace is of particular interest to O’Connor, as reflected in the book’s title, which is taken from Matthew 11:12 in the Douay-Rheims Bible. Also serving as an epigraph for the book, the verse reads, “From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent bear it away” (2).

The meaning of this verse—both in its original form and in relation to the book—is a matter of some debate. A common interpretation is that God’s kingdom and works are constantly under threat of violence, and therefore heaven requires those who are violent in their faith to protect it. Mason certainly qualifies as one of these individuals, having shot Rayber twice to prevent him from raising Tarwater in a secular environment. Later, Tarwater too will find himself both the victim and perpetrator of violence on his road toward his destiny.

Yet in the context of the book’s narrative, along with much of the rest of O’Connor’s work, violence is viewed less as a way of protecting the kingdom of God and more as an avenue by which an individual achieves a state of grace. In a 2009 Guardian article, scholar Heather McRobie offers some key insights into understanding the relationship between violence and God in O’Connor’s work:

Far from being meaningless, the violence frequently present in O’Connor’s work—a character dies seemingly senselessly in almost all of her short stories—was bound up for the writer with the idea that violence was a way of preparing characters for their moment of ‘grace,’ that close proximity to the point of death when the essence of a character is revealed. (McRobie, Heather. “Is Flannery O’Connor a Catholic Writer?” The Guardian. 22 Apr. 2009. https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2009/apr/22/fiction)

Later on, this notion will be reflected in the narrative more dramatically. Even at this early stage, the act of being reborn as a prophet is described in violent terms, with fire used as the dominant motif. In explaining the pains Mason suffers as a result of his prophetic condition, O’Connor writes of afflictions “that come from the Lord and burn the prophet clean; for he himself had been burned clean and burned clean again. He had learned by fire” (5). Elsewhere, when describing the first time God speaks to Mason, “His own blood had been burned dry” (5). Mason also likens himself to Elijah, a prophet from the Old Testament who is briefly engulfed in flames when he resists God’s call. Moreover, the fire motif plays into a persistent theme of duality: While Tarwater’s decision to set the Powderhead cabin on fire would seem to distance him from the fate God and Mason have in store for him, it also sets into motion a series of events that will lead him to embrace his destiny as a prophet. Thus for Tarwater, fire is at once an agent of violent destruction and a vehicle for exaltation.

Of course, it is not God who tells Tarwater to burn down the cabin but rather the voice of “the friend.” In letters, O’Connor confirms that the voice belongs to Satan. That this is not immediately clear to the reader is perhaps a function of the Devil’s persuasiveness. The voice even tells Tarwater that there is no such thing as the Devil, explaining, “It ain’t Jesus or the devil. It’s Jesus or you” (39). This reflects O’Connor’s complicated ideas about free will and personal agency, a topic she also explores in other works. On one hand, Satan never forces Tarwater’s hand in committing a sinful or blasphemous act. Tarwater takes great pride in his ability to act on his own volition, unlike Rayber whose agency generally takes the form of resisting the urge to act.

Tarwater seems drawn inexorably toward his destiny by forces both divine and devilish, suggesting an absence of free will. Perhaps this contradiction can best be settled by an Author’s Note O’Connor includes in a second edition of her 1952 novel Wise Blood. There, she writes, “Does one’s integrity ever lie in what he is not able to do? I think that usually it does, for free will does not mean one will, but many wills conflicting in one man.” (O’Connor, Flannery. Wise Blood. New York: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux. 1962.) This isn’t to say that Rayber’s inaction makes him a man of integrity. As later chapters bear out, his inability to act drives his own destiny as much as Tarwater’s destiny is driven by action. Rather, it suggests that whatever propels these men forward toward fate—whether it’s mental illness, childhood trauma, God, or a combination of all three—they both possess far less control over their destinies than either is willing to admit.

Finally, the dichotomy O’Connor sets up between two extremes—the unwavering religious fundamentalism of Mason and the strict secularism of Rayber—is consistent with both O’Connor’s other works and her broader attitudes about religion, culture, and the role of literature. While O’Connor is a devout Catholic, the behavior of the book’s religious characters is often difficult to stomach, in particular Mason’s repeated acts of kidnapping, gun violence, and baptism without consent. Yet while Rayber is initially more sympathetic, the character’s wholesale rejection of the spirit or anything else outside his own supposedly rational brain will become increasingly problematic. This painting of extremes, according to O’Connor, is her way of challenging the firmly-held beliefs of readers, whether they sit closer to the religious end of the cultural spectrum or the secular. In 1957’s Mystery and Manners, O’Connor explains this process:

When you can assume that your audience holds the same beliefs you do, you can relax and use more normal means of talking to it; when you have to assume that it does not, then you have to make your vision apparent by shock—to the hard of hearing you shout, and for the almost-blind you draw large and startling figures. (O’Connor, Flannery. Mystery and Manners. New York: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux. 1969.)

Thus, the characters in The Violent Bear It Away exist not to guide readers on an easy path toward meaning. Rather, their extreme behaviors and attitudes serve to challenge, in O’Connor’s words, “typical social patterns” and to bring readers face to face with “mystery and the unexpected.” (O’Connor, Flannery. Mystery and Manners. New York: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux. 1969.) Understanding this is key to interpreting a text like The Violent Bear It Away in which the narrative can often feel beguiling or even impenetrable.