Week thirty of Lite Reads comes to a close as we finish the selection The Geranium by Flannery O’Connor. During the week, there have been questions as food for thought on social media as people had the chance to read it and think about it. Before I announce the next Lite Reads selection (March 17), I will be sharing my own thoughts here. Spoilers ahead for those who haven’t finished reading the story yet.
The Geranium by Flannery O’Connor, first published in 1946, is one of O’Connor’s many Southern Gothic short stories. The narrative focuses on Old Dudley’s memories of his past life in the rural south, and on his regret at leaving his home to retire in his daughter’s apartment in New York City. Much of the story is dedicated to Old Dudley’s deep longing for the past, intertwined with his deep racism.
The way the story depicts racism is a mixed bag, which I think is probably the best one could hope for from a white author in the 1940s, but it does still make it an incredibly frustrating read. Old Dudley’s racism is highly representative of his longing for things the way they used to be. He wants his life to be how it was when he lived in the rural south (where Black folks were subservient to him) but he is trapped in NYC with everything that comes with that (including Black folks as neighbours). I think Old Dudley’s views are probably quite representative of white southerners in the 40s, and his desperation to cling to that is probably equally as representative. That said, I found it largely frustrating to read because the story itself is so entrenched in racism. Of the 4960 words that make up this story, 42 of those words were the n-word. The majority of those uses were in third-person point-of-view narration. It started to feel as though O’Connor really had to go out of her way to use that many slurs at a certain point. Beyond the actual words used, the descriptions and dialogue veered into racist stereotypes every time Black characters appeared.
I don’t have much experience personally reading Southern Gothic literature, and much of what I have read of it has contained elements of it rather than being pure Southern Gothic. I think it makes for an interesting experience to read an author so known for her involvement in the genre, especially when the story is being told from the setting of NYC but still manages to maintain its Southern Gothic style. O’Connor is able to make the personality of the main character reflect the feeling she intends, as well as to make the story feel so rooted in Southern life and people, even if only through memories.
The geranium that the title refers to is the one sitting in the window of Old Dudley’s neighbour in the next building over. While the geranium is a literal flower that he watches each day as the neighbour leaves it out in the sun, it is also a highly symbolic plant in Old Dudley’s life. With everything that is so different about his new home, he is completely unable to adjust, finding no real examples of familiarity except for the geranium he looks at each day. Old Dudley thinks of geraniums from his home, and even though this one isn’t as lovely, it is all he physically has to remind him. On the day of this story, he realises that the geranium has fallen to the ground six floors below, which seems to devastate him. Even though he is completely reliant on viewing the geranium each day, he is unable to reach it, and he is unable to retrieve it for himself. He would need to stride through the change he fears so much to reach this treasure, and he simply isn’t able to overcome his own mind, even for the sake of one last piece of his happy past to cherish.
As a whole, I think The Geranium by Flannery O’Connor is an incredibly mixed bag. The symbolism and style both work so well that I want to love it, but I would also much rather read stories about racism from the perspective of those it targets than those who perpetrate it.
I hope everyone who participated by reading the story and following along on social media enjoyed the story. If you have more thoughts to add, please feel free to comment on this post, or anywhere on The Feminist Bibliothecary’s social media. Week thirty-one begins tomorrow, March 17, with a brand new short story selection!
The Feminist Bibliothecary 
Hi, Just noting that your review was as you put it ‘a mixed bag.’ Well written and as you say you tried to love it but couldn’t get past the word issues. I suggest that these word issues are plaguing us today as bad as ever. We live in a time where Free Speech is a dying idea and I ask your kindness in re-evaluating the issue. Words are only words that complex human brains make something of. Context is the whole thing; the brain circuitry is complex primarily to make sense of all these words. O’Conner was a brilliant writer and a progressive searcher with a kind soul. That is the context in which this complex story was written and the heart is expansive. The story handles many issues at once with simple words. Our brains do the translation. The white guy at the end across the window was not portrayed in any good light whereas the new neighbor with the shiny tan shoes was well presented. The old man is confused and lost in this new fangled world as many folks today are with the new way of socializing on social media and much less socializing in the ‘real’ world of face to face. Anyway, free speech is under attack and I ask you to reconsider. Love is the answer and where is the love? Joe DiMattio
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Frankly, the more time I put between me and this story, the less fondly I remember it. I haven’t changed my mind about my criticisms. This story was really not for me. We’ve read over a hundred short stories as part of Lite Reads, and there are many that I hold much more dearly. Free speech includes not enjoying everything you read and listing the reasons why.
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Tough times! Thanks for your reply.
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Hello, So I had a completely different take on this story, “The Geranium”. The whole time reading it, I took Old Dudley to be a black man. To me, the story was more about a longing for the past and his struggle with his aging body and the racism came from him projecting it on to his own race.
In his home town, he had a reputation and was needed by people (the ladies in the boarding house). He was in his comfort zone. The black man in the apartment next to his daughter represented a disconnect to his world of knowing his place and how he fit in. When he saw the black neighbor, dressed in his Sunday best, but it wasn’t Sunday, it seemed to represent a change in Old Dudley, that maybe his views of a black man (nigger) were self-imposed and perpetuated in his own mind. He needed to let go of the past. He recognized that his comfort zone was for him. Others did not put limitations on themselves based on their skin color. I think, when the black neighbor helped Old Dudley up the steps, it represented an ascending in the mind of a man helping a man, without regard to race. Again, I saw Old Dudley as a black man, so it was a black man helping a black man to ascend the stairs and leave the past, the old way of thinking, including self-imposed limitations based on color, in the past.
This was a struggle for Old Dudley since his life was based on him knowing his place. And maybe he saw things differently now. The geranium had fallen from its perch. The roots were visible reaching up to heaven.
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