Parker's Back

The story makes use of flashbacks to reveal Parker’s history before his divine encounter and inner transformation. While the story opens in the present day, with Parker and his wife on their porch, it moves swiftly into a flashback to reveal how Parker met and courted his wife, beginning: “He had first seen her one morning when his truck broke down” (511). Within this flashback is inserted another flashback, this one exploring what led Parker to begin tattooing himself. It begins: “Parker was fourteen when he saw a man in a fair, tattooed from head to foot” (512) Eventually the second flashback is completed and the story returns to the story of Parker’s courtship of his wife. While there are other mentions of Parker’s past within the story, these two flashbacks are complete scenes that showcase the events that have led up to Parker’s conversion.

The Southern dialect used in the story is an example of colloquialism. It establishes the story’s setting and grounds it in the Southern gothic genre. Characters use particular syntax and slang, such as “You don’t talk no filth here” (511) and, “That ain’t being saved” (518). Additionally, O’Connor intentionally misspells certain words to create an auditory effect, such as having a character say, “panner-rammer” (519) instead of panorama, or having the men at the pool hall greet Parker with “Yeyyyyy boy!” (526). Using language in this way creates a portrayal of how characters speak to one another and shows familiarity and community. The use of colloquialisms indicates that the characters are in the rural South and may lack the formal education associated with standard English. All the characters speak in colloquial English, without any contrasting characters, creating a sense of a self-containment and isolated community in the South.

The story alludes to biblical characters and motifs throughout. Sarah Ruth calls Parker’s tattoos “vanity of vanities” (515) alluding to the Book of Ecclesiastes. The burning tree that Parker finds himself under after crashing the tree is a reference to the burning bush through which Moses had a direct encounter with God, including the detail of the shoes being removed during the encounter. When Parker is kicked out of the pool hall, the hall is compared to the “ship from which Jonah had been cast into the sea” (527), which is an allusion to the biblical story of Jonah, who ran from God’s calling. Parker deciding to say his full name, Obadiah Elihue, instead of the preferred O.E. is a reference to the tradition of biblical characters changing their names to signify a change in their life (such as Abram becoming Abraham or Saul becoming Paul).