The document provides background information on American author Flannery O'Connor. It discusses her upbringing in Georgia, her education, her writing career, and her battle with lupus. It summarizes two of her short stories, "A Good Man is Hard to Find" and "Good Country People", and notes that O'Connor is regarded as a master of the short story form despite her small body of work consisting of only 31 stories and 2 novels. She wrote about spiritual themes shaped by her Catholic upbringing in the Protestant South and continued writing up until her death from lupus at age 39.

1. Flannery O’ConnorDoug ThompsonMichael O’Leary

2. “The life you save may be your own”In “the life you save may be your own” through-out the story you kinda have an idea Mr. Shiftlet is up to no good. He said he wasn’t after money, but just wanted to help there plantation. Mr. shiflet claims he is after an ‘innocent women” not the trash, but in reality he just wanted the car and any money he can get off the family. In the end Mr. Shiflet ends up marring the retarded daughter and takes the car and Lucynell on a hunny moon. Mr. Shiftlet leaves her stranded at the diner. The story line is very serious, but the way O’Conner paints the picture makes it Humorous.

3. “Good country people” In “Good Country people” Joy/ hulga (her ugly name) was a very interesting character. She lost a leg at the age of ten, and turned bitter as if she was mad at the world. Hulga was very rude and unpleasant to be around. Manly The bible sales men that claimed to be “good country folk’ manipulated the family and squeezed his way in and got invited to dinner. And from there; him and Hulga make a picnic date. The bible sales man is really no sales men and is only after her prosthetic leg. Which he gets when he lures her to the barn loft were he takes her fake leg!

4. flannery o connor backgroundFlannery O'Connor was born in Savannah, Georgia The only child of a Catholic family.The region was part of the 'Christ-haunted' Bible belt of the Southern States. The spiritual heritage of the region shaped profoundly O'Connor's writing as described in her essay "The Catholic Novelist in the Protestant South" O'Connor's father, Edward F. O'Connor, was a realtor owner. He worked later for a construction company and died in 1941from lupus. Her mother, Regina, came from a prominent family in the state - her father had been a mayor of Milledgeville for many years.

5. when o connor was 12 she moved to MilledgevilleMilledgeville was her mothers birthplace.She attended the Peabody High School and enrolled in the Georgia State College for Women. At school she edited the college magazine and graduated in 1945 with an A.B.O'Connor then continued her studies at the University of Iowa, where she attended writer's workshops conducted by Paul Engle.

6. Her first short story.At the age of 21 she published her first short story, 'The Geranium', in Accent.In the following year she received the degree of Master of Fine Arts in Literature. In 1947 she lived for seven months at Yaddo, Saratoga Springs, N.Y., an estate left by the Trask family for writers, painters and musicians.

7. In 1950 O'Connor suffered her first attack from disseminated lupusA debilitating blood disease that had killed her father. She returned to Milledgeville where she lived with her mother on her dairy farm. In spite of the illness she kept pushing on.O'Connor continued to write and occasionally she lectured about creative writing in colleges. "I write every day for at least two hours," she said in an interview in 1952.

8. O’Conner was stubborn and strong willed.O’Conner said "I am making out fine in spite of any conflicting stories," she wrote to Robert Lowell. "I have enough energy to write with and as that is all I have any business doing anyhow, I can with one eye squinted take it all as a blessing. What you have to measure out, you come to observe more closely, or so I tell myself."

9. her illness became much worse ultimately leading to her deathFrom around 1955 O'Connor was forced to use crutches. An abdominal operation reactivated the lupus and O'Connor died on August 3, 1964, at the age of 39. Her second collection of short stories, Everything That Rises Must Converge, was published in 1965. The Complete Short Stories contained several stories that had not previously appeared in book form. O'Connor's letters, published as The Habit of Being reveal her conscious craftsmanship in writing and the role of Roman Catholicism in her life.

10. ConclusionO'Connor's short stories have been considered her finest work. With ‘A Good Man Is Hard to Find’, and Other Stories ‘good country people’ ‘and the life you save may be your own’. She came to be regarded as a master of the form.O'Connor's body of work was small, consisting of only thirty-one stories, two novels, and some speeches and letters.