The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Saturday, August 30, 2025

Chatter: Between her fixation on grace and her more strident fixation on the N-word, it is often difficult to read Flannery O’Connor’s fiction and her letters. Her wit, her insights, the energy of her stories compensate and then some. I suspect that had she lived past the Mozartian age of 39, her maturity would have eventually tired of the fixations, though as a fan of Goldwater, we can only quake at what new fixations she might’ve discovered. There’s no question that she would have found Donald Trump unbearable–and voted for him enthusiastically. There’s no question that she would have been the important writer she became with or without the N-word. But I posed the question to ChatGPT anyway: If Flannery O’Connor hadn’t used the n-word, would we have ever heard of her? The answer (with my brief replies in italics): 

That’s a sharp and provocative question.

Flannery O’Connor’s work is often remembered both for its brilliance (her mastery of Southern Gothic, Catholic-infused theology, grotesque characters, and ironic moral clarity) and for the discomfort it causes, particularly around her use of racist language and the racism embedded in her stories and letters.

If she hadn’t used the n-word—or more broadly, if she hadn’t engaged racism so explicitly—she would almost certainly still be known. Here’s why:

1. Literary innovation: O’Connor’s reputation rests heavily on her artistry—her short stories like A Good Man Is Hard to Find and Everything That Rises Must Converge are considered among the finest in American literature, and her essays and letters also display rare wit and depth.
2. The grotesque and theological vision: She carved out a distinctive voice by blending violent, grotesque events with deep theological and moral concerns. That unique combination, rather than the racial slurs themselves, is what secured her a place in the canon.
3. The Southern context: Racism was deeply woven into the mid-20th-century South she was writing about. If she had avoided racist language entirely, it might have changed the texture of her work—but not necessarily its core themes. She was documenting, often critically, a social reality.
4. Historical reception: Early critics and scholars celebrated her for her craftsmanship and religious depth, not for her use of racist language. The debates over her racism have come more to the fore in recent decades, as we reevaluate canonical authors through a different lens.

So—while the n-word and the racist framework of her time are part of her legacy, they are not the reason she is remembered. If anything, they complicate her legacy today rather than being what made her famous.

Would you like me to give you a sense of how critics today are reassessing O’Connor—how much the racial element weighs against the artistic one in her lasting reputation?

Sure, go ahead. 

Alright — here’s the broad picture of how Flannery O’Connor is being reassessed today:

1. Her artistry is still revered.

Most critics still rank her among the greatest American short story writers of the 20th century. Her command of irony, her compressed storytelling, her ability to shock readers into moral reflection, and her unique blending of grotesque realism with theological vision remain central to why she’s taught and studied.

2. Her racism complicates, but doesn’t erase, her standing.

In her stories, the racism of her characters is often depicted unsparingly, sometimes satirically, but not always in ways that sit comfortably with modern readers. In her letters, however, O’Connor’s own attitudes toward race are more difficult to excuse: she used racial slurs casually, expressed opposition to integration, and revealed a kind of elitist Catholic detachment that didn’t amount to active hatred but certainly to prejudice.

This makes her legacy thorny: the art isn’t “racist propaganda,” but the artist herself was far from free of the racism of her time.

3. Different critical camps have emerged.

• Traditionalists: Emphasize her artistry, Catholic vision, and moral seriousness, seeing the racism as historically contextual but not essential to her work.
• Reassessors: Argue that her racism should be foregrounded because it shapes her characters, her worldview, and the Southern society she depicts.
• Radicals: Some suggest she should be de-centered in the canon, or at least taught alongside critical discussions of race, rather than celebrated without caveats.

4. Institutional debates reflect the tension.

In 2020, Loyola University Maryland removed O’Connor’s name from a dormitory after students raised concerns about her racist language in her letters. At the same time, major publishers continue to reissue her works, and she remains a fixture in college syllabi, but increasingly with added context.

5. Her place in the canon is shifting, not disappearing.

Where once she was treated almost reverentially as a Southern Catholic genius, she’s now often taught in tension: Yes, brilliant writer. Yes, deeply flawed human being. Yes, her work embodies the contradictions of the American South.

In other words: her racism has become part of the conversation about why she’s important, not the reason she’s remembered in the first place.

👉 So, in response to your first question: if she hadn’t used the n-word, she’d still be famous—but the modern reassessment of her legacy would look very different, and perhaps less fraught.

Would you like me to sketch what teaching O’Connor looks like today—how professors tend to balance her literary brilliance with her racism in the classroom?

No. 

—P.T.

About bad taste, I don’t know, because taste is a relative matter. There are some who will find almost everything in bad taste, from spitting in the street to Christ’s association with Mary Magdalen. Fiction is supposed to represent life, and the fiction writer has to use as many aspects of life as are necessary to make his total picture convincing. The fiction writer doesn’t state, he shows, renders. It’s the nature of fiction and it can’t be helped. If you’re writing about the vulgar, you have to prove they’re vulgar by showing them at it. The two worst sins of bad taste in fiction are pornography and sentimentality. One is too much sex and the other too much sentiment. You have to have enough of either to prove your point but no more. Of course there are some fiction writers who feel they have to retire to the bathroom or the bed with every character every time he takes himself to either place. Unless such a trip is used to further the story, I feel it is in bad taste. In the second chapter of my novel, I have such a scene but I felt it was vital to the meaning. I don’t think you have to worry much about bad taste with a competent writer, because he uses everything for a reason. The reader may not always see the reason. But it’s when sex or scurrility are used for their own sakes, that they are in bad taste.

–From Flannery O’Connor’s letter to Eileen Hall, March 10, 1956.

The Cartoon and Live Briefing Archive.