Abstract

Bernard Lonergan, SJ, has noted that an empty box does not know it is empty and does not care whether it is empty or full. An empty stomach, on the other hand, knows when it is empty and yearns for what will satisfy it. Flannery O’Connor’s stories present the reader with a parade of characters who are empty boxes in the process of becoming empty stomachs. William Lynch, SJ, said that many times such conversions result from stark encounters with the finite, thus accounting for the grotesque in O’Connor’s stories.