Abstract

The sacred and the profane perpetuate life in a dialectical fashion for it is by virtue of one that the other is defined and recognized. Flannery O'Connor establishes a fictional dichotomy between the sacred and the profane. In exploring the tragic sense of the human condition, O'Connor illustrates the need for grace which manifests itself in the grotesque, the violent and the absurd. Like the Old Testament prophets, O'Connor's club-footed freaks, martyred mothers and Christ-obsessed Bible thumpers carry the burden of Truth--the penetrating intrusion of the Sacred into a world that proudly proclaims the autonomy of the Profane. While the elements of the profane may parallel O'Connor's use of the grotesque, its ultimate purpose is not to shock and horrify the reader but to heighten the mystery of Grace