The Moral Imagination in Flannery O'Connor and Russell Kirk

Abstract

Flannery O’Connor and Russell Kirk are similar storytellers of the mid-twentieth century. They are comparable in many respects. Both, for instance, worry about Enlightenment ideas leading to brutal policies. They also share a conviction that stories can do more to awaken people to the dangers of abstract thinking than philosophic treatises. And though their stories share a theological orientation rooted in the Catholic faith, the stories themselves have important differences. Kirk’s stories are about ghosts and O’Connor shows how grace builds upon nature.