The Genius by Frank O’Connor Essay -- Genius Frank Oconnor Essays

The Genius by inconsiderate OConnorThe boys personality and his intelligence are swiftly established inthe opening paragraph. His mother is presented as being a strong figure out on him and appears as a miscellanea of ally against the roughchildren savages as she describes them that live and play in thearea. It is clear that she encourages him to regard himself as diverse and separate from them, but it is equally obvious that heis not intent to associate with them anyway. He describes himself asa cissy by disapprobation and says that he regarded the idea of opposeingas both unattractive and self-destructive. He avoids rough games andprefers the company of girls to boys only because they dont fight somuch.Religion seems to play an unusually important image in his life and itseems probable that this is a reflection of his close affinitywith Miss Cooney. He himself uses our Blessed Lord as a kind ofdefence against bullies who might otherwise hammer his head on thepavement. It is diaphanous from the way he uses argument that he isunusually articulate for his age, and this is a reflection of both hisnatural intelligence and his strong preference for expectant company.The fact that his mother has told him about geniuses makes it clearthat she has high ambitions for him. This is reinforced by the factthat sheWorried herself endlessly finding answers to my questions.Miss Cooney, however, plays an important employment in encouraging andfeeding the boys sense of himself as someone special. Although ain truth eccentric and even touch-and-go woman, she recognises hisintelligence and, by making her religious books freely available tohim, seeks to fructify and foster the growth of the idea th... ...y life, but also to Frank OConnorsdiscussion of the short story in The lone(a) Voice (1963). OConnorcompares the novel and the short story whereas the novel screw adhereto the classical concept of civilized society, of man as an sentient being wholives in a com munity...the short story remains by its very natureremote from the community - romantic, individualistic, andintransigent. The relevance of aspects of this will echo with mydiscussion of a story by Tobias Wolff in the final role of mypaper.For OConnor, the short story is concerned with individuals who aremarginalised, or who marginalise themselves these individuals areoutlawed figures wandering about the fringes of society...As aresult, there is in the short story at its most characteristicsomething we do not often find in the novel - an intense awareness of human loneliness.