Reality

O'Connor stresses throughout her essays the importance of a writer and a reader to face realities. Anything that is not reality-based will not be authentically written and therefore untrue to the author and the reader experience. She feels that a person should write about what he knows, his own reality, because when he stretches to create something out of his own experiences or circumstances, it will show negatively in the work. O'Connor is grounded in reality and tells readers that an author should not be afraid to get dusty because writing fiction is dirty work. A writer should be able to face reality and look hard at truths. This perspective is reflected in O'Connor's own writing style which can be very frank, especially for a well-mannered Southerner. O'Connor does write about her own reality much of the time and the characters in her books and stories are often...