In 1964, in one of the last letters she wrote in her short life, the Catholic fiction writer Flannery O’Connor commented that the Republican convention “wasn’t much.”
“I look forward to the Democratic,” the author from Georgia continued, “as they are better at the corn.” Her comment was less about politics than entertainment. Republican conventions were – at least at that time – generally more subdued than the Democrat conventions and thus less fun to watch.
Never an idealist, O’Connor makes only a few scattered, but often pointed, comments about politics in “The Habit of Being,” the nearly 600-page volume of her letters. (On John F. Kennedy’s presidential election: “Now that we have elected him, we can begin to cuss him.”)
Although O’Connor’s fiction doesn’t deal specifically with politics, it includes some disreputable characters nonetheless. The short story “Good Country People” features a Bible salesman who is an atheist, shameless liar and thief. The Misfit in “A Good Man is Hard to Find” murders a grandmother in cold blood. Another example is Tom T. Shiftlet in “The Life You Save May Be Your Own.”
In that story, Shiftlet is a drifter who presents himself as a thoughtful person and a capable handyman, and he ingratiates himself with a widow. Soon enough, the old woman encourages him to marry her daughter, Lucynell, who is deaf and never learned to speak. Eventually, Shiftlet agrees to marry Lucynell, and he demands money from her mother to pay for their honeymoon.
But soon after the marriage, Shiftlet abandons Lucynell at a diner, making off with the old woman’s car and most of her money.
“The Life You Save May Be Your Own” was first published in 1955 in the Kenyon Review, a respected but small circulation literary magazine. Two years later, the Schlitz Playhouse of Stars bought the rights to the story for a television production. Starring in the small screen version were Gene Kelly (a few years after “Singin’ in the Rain”), Agnes Moorehead (who made her film debut in “Citizen Kane” and later became a regular on television’s “Bewitched”), and Janice Rule (who was on the cover of Life magazine a few years earlier).
While faithful in many ways to O’Connor’s story, the Schlitz people made an important change. On television, the story does not end with Shiftlet on his own speeding to Mobile, Alabama, in a stolen vehicle. Instead, he experiences a change of heart. He makes a U-turn and goes back to the diner to get Lucynell. The story ends with the image of Shiftlet, beaming that famous Gene Kelly smile, with his new wife resting her head on his shoulder as they happily drive to their honeymoon destination.
At a time when O’Connor did not even own a television, it was that easy for network executives and their employees to completely distort her work by presenting a con man as a savior and putting that savior before a large audience.
The TV people knew their viewers. After the broadcast, O’Connor, who used the profit from the story’s sale to buy a new refrigerator, complained about having to endure “all manner of enthusiastic congratulations from the local citizens.”
“They feel that I have arrived at last,” added one of the most respected American authors of the 20th century.
Human nature hasn’t changed since then, but communications technology has. Most politicians have taken full advantage of the advances. Some, with the help of their supporters and enablers, are especially skillful at presenting their weaknesses as strengths and campaigning as champions of the neglected and vulnerable.
The people I know – my friends, relatives and acquaintances – are evenly divided in their political views. Some of those whose views are most different from mine are admirably prayerful and charitable people. And yet, when we talk politics, I end up saying at some point, “No, no, no! Don’t you see?”
They have reciprocal concerns about my thinking. We see the worst dangers coming from different directions.
I shake my head in disbelief. They pity me.
Historically, our democracy has been sustained with free speech, passionate debate and democratic elections (and a civil war). So I often remember what Flannery O’Connor wrote when Dwight Eisenhower and Adlai Stevenson were running for president. With one sentence – a throwaway line in a letter that was mostly about her health and literature – she illustrated both the greatness and the frustration of American self-government.
“My mama and I are on the way to the polls,” O’Connor wrote to her friend, “to cancel out each other’s vote.”
Carl Peters is former managing editor of the Catholic Star Herald.
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