The Unobtainable Good Things in O’Connor’s A Late Encounter with the En

The Unobtainable Good Things in OConnors A Late Encounter with the adversaryI have Seen the Enemy and it is Myself . . . . . . . She wanted the General at her graduation because she wanted to return what she stood for, or, as she said, what all was behind her, and was not behind them. This them was not anybody in particular. It was provided all the upstarts who has turned the world on its head and unsettled the slipway of decent living. (134) These are the thoughts of fling Poker Sash, as offered by Flannery OConnor in the second paragraph of her story A Late Encounter with the Enemy. fissure, a sixty-two year doddery school teacher, is receiving a college degree that has interpreted her twenty years to earn. She should be proud of her accomplishment. Of course she should be proud. She proves line up the old adages, its never too late and good things come to those who wait. Isnt it manageable though, that in some situations, the good things come too late and when they do arr ive they are not so good? I say OConnor, through this story, is trying to warn us (the readers) of that possibility. The first paragraph of A Late Encounter is told from the point-of-view of passs grandfather, General Tennessee Flintrock Sash. OConnor makes it very clear to us that the old man doesnt give two slaps for her graduation. Surely, his attitude is apparent to Sally, too. Sally is alert of his attitude, too. Why, then, is it so important to her that he live to see her graduation? In the above passage, Sally offers three seemingly simple, but in actuality, manifold explanations for her prayer.Sally states explicitly that she wants her grandfather to attend her graduation because she wanted to show what she stood for. This is very ... ...tory, opting instead to make for themselves a false past? Ironically, Sally is guilty of using this false past to impress the Dean and sanction her degree.Graduation day arrives and Sally is ready for the good thing that she has waited so long for to arrive. Alas, if it is her grandfather that she wants to prove something to, she is out of luck. OConner cheats Sally out of her s of glory. We learn at the end of the story that the old man dies darn on stage at the graduation, oblivious to Sally receiving her diploma. Afterwards, her young nephew, the clever scout John Wesley Poker Sash, hastily bumped the corpse out the grit way so that he could get to the Coca-Cola machine thus depriving Sally of her moment to gloat in front of him. Dammit Cheated out of triumph again. Sally Sash (whose middle name is after all Poker) had bet on the past and lost.