In the introduction to
The Habit of Being, her close friend and biographer Sally Fitzgerald characterizes O'Connor's complicated and demanding temperament through paradoxes, stating that she was extremely self-confident yet truly humble, sharply penetrating -- even fierce -- yet frequently filled with glee at the smallest absurdities of life, "devout but never pietistic." In titling the posthumous volume of O'Connor's essays and lectures
Mystery and Manners, Robert and Sally Fitzgerald capture the twin threads of her uncompromisingly orthodox Roman Catholic faith and her delight in the comic details of social interaction. The core concern of her fiction is the fallen state of modern humanity unaware of its need for redemption. Writing of O'Connor's first novel,
Wise Blood (1952), Caroline Gordon states, "In Miss O'Connor's vision of modern man -- a vision not limited to Southern rural humanity -- all her characters are 'displaced persons.' ... 'off center,' out of place, because they are victims of a rejection of the Scheme of Redemption." Typically, her stories dramatize the climactic -- and frequently fatal -- proffering of grace to these prideful characters.
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