Sign Language (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9780881467406)

Flannery O'Connor is unique in that she is not only familiar with seventeenth-century emblematic representations of scriptural truth, but she is also knowledgeable of the conventions of twentieth-century art forms. Her characters are illuminated by textual images formulated from the juxtaposition of scripture, seventeenth- and twentieth-century archetypes, and street detritus that inhabits pictorial sequences exceeding the boundaries of time and diachronically upending O'Connor's narrative world. Her undergraduate single panel cartoons are an excellent starting point when tracing the chronological development of her stylized graphic narrative. The idea of tattooing graphic text on the human body first occurs in the manuscript of WHY DO THE HEATHEN RAGE? and then in her last story, Parker's Back. Flannery O'Connor's graphic narrative, a sign language of dots and lines, discarded objects, and the mutilation of human bodies, provides a stark illuminated manuscript for her readers.

Author: Ruth Reiniche
ISBN-10: 0881467405
ISBN-13: 9780881467406
Publisher: Mercer University Press
Language: English
Published: 05/01/2020
Pages: 207
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 1.05lbs
Size: 8.70h x 5.90w x 0.90d

Review Citation(s):
Choice 03/01/2021