'It is trying being a liberal in Dalton,' begins 'The Barber,' the second story from O'Connor's masters thesis. It's all too easy to relate to this story; the story of the educated Southern integrationist faced with all the ingrown racism and insensitivity of the ignorant. Naturally the topic of politics comes up when he's least able to escape - trapped in his tormenter's chair, half lathered and half shaven.
The protagonist gets angrier and angrier as he fails to find the right words or the perfect cutting phrase to disarm his mob of opponents. He then makes the ludicrous decision to go home and write a speech to convince the barber and other patrons of their ignorance and stupidity in matters of race and politics. And naturally, the whole episode ends in complete and utter humiliation.
While one of the great pleasures of reading O'Connor is the fun she makes of ignorant rednecks, there is equally an element of frustration reading such stories (or perhaps that's just my own frustration coloring my reading of the story). Maybe it's because race seems to have re-entered the national conversation in such heinous ways (There's no KKK in Barbour land!). But at least this story is quite funny, in the sense that you want to laugh even while you grit your teeth.
- The Barber Flannery O'connor Summary
- The Barber Flannery O'connor Analysis
- The Barber Flannery O'connor
Jan 17, 2018 Flannery O’Connor takes your latest Facebook fight and places it in a 1940s barber shop. It’s one of her grad school stories, and you can see that it’s tentative in places where a decade later she would kick in the door. (Rayber punches the barber in the final scene? Oct 08, 2019 The Barber – Flannery O’Connor I became very interested in Flannery O’Connor’s work this past week, after learning about her peculiar life, and was inspired to read several of her short stories. Flannery O'Connor had a way of writing irony. She, like other southern writers like Warren, Faulkner, and Clancy, understood that Southern relations are rarely only about authority or correctness - they are about ironic structure, which may raise issues of authority or correctness, but exists as a distinctive ptolemaic of the Southern mind.
In this next short story by Flannery O’Connor, the narrator brings us into a barber shop, where two (and more) men, discuss who they will vote for in “the Democratic White Primary” (p. 15)
The Barber Flannery O'connor Summary
Our main character, Rayber, wants to vote for Darmon, the candidate that supports African American equality. On the other side, Joe, the Barber, wants to vote for Hawkson, a man directly opposed to the rights of African Americans.
This whole story narrates the three visits to the barber shop that Rayber makes (to get shaved). They discuss politics all three times. Before the last visit, Rayber prepares an argument, reasons to vote for Darmon.
We see Raybor read this argument to his philosophical friend, Jacobs, a student.
In the afternoon he took it around to Jacob’s office. Blakeley was there but he left. Rayber read the paper to Jacobs.
“Well,” Jacobs said, “so what? What do you call yourself doing?” He had been jotting figures down on a record sheet all the time Rayber was reading.
Rayber wondered if he were busy. “Defending myself against barbers,” he said. “You ever tried to argue with a barber?”
“I never argue,” Jacobs said.
“That’s because you don’t know this kind of ignorance,” Rayber explained. “You’ve never experienced it.”
Jacobs snorted. “Oh yes I have,” he said.
“What happened?”
“I never argue.”
“But you know you’re right,” Rayber persisted.
“I never argue.” (pp. 21-22)
The Barber Flannery O'connor Analysis
Rayber is trying to argue with these barbers, and this desire seems devoid of any sort of care or compassion. It is polemic, attacking, selfish. But we agree with Rayber on the mere facts of politics (hopefully, right?). Nevertheless, we don’t agree with his tactics. He has right meaning but wrong manner. We see him “argue” in the last two pages of the story.
Rayber felt as if he were fighting his way out of a net. They were over him with their red faces grinning. He heard the words drag out – “Well, the way I see it, men elect…” He felt them pull out of his mouth like freight cars, jangling, backing up on each other, grating to a halt, sliding, clinching back, jarring, and then suddenly stopping as roughly as they had begun. It was over. Rayber was jarred that it was over so soon. For a second – as if they were expecting him to go on – no one said anything. (p. 24)
The Barber Flannery O'connor
The men are completely unaffected by Rayber’s speech. Even though arguments are helpful. And it’s not as if an argument has never persuaded someone. However, it is worthless to expect an argument to be able to change someone’s mind. Arguments can, but don’t always affect people. And Rayber does all of this without much sense of compassion. That is what I find missing. If only Rayber could have loved Joe, Roy, and the others in their racism, with the hopes of bringing them out of that wrong thinking. But that is not how Rayber approaches the situation.