The Displaced Person Analysis

O'Connor was a hard-core bird lover. Her favorite bird? Yes, the peacock. She owned dozens of them and considered herself their servant.In her November 25, 1955 letter to her friend Betty Hester, O...

Most of Flannery O'Connor's stories are set in the southern United States, and often in her home state of Georgia. In the case of "The Displaced Person," it's obvious we are in the South, though th...

Since the title of the story is "The Displaced Person" we might expect to get the story from the point of view of Mr. Guizac, the named Displaced Person. Surprisingly, this doesn't happen. In Secti...

While the exact dates of the story aren't provided, "The Displaced Person" does take place in a specific, and uniquely tragic period in our history – the period generally known as World War I...

Even though this is a dark and gruesome tale, there is a playful feeling behind it that is signature O'Connor. When we learn that pretending to swallow a lighted cigarette is Mr. Shortley's "way of...

O'Connor uses a specific kind of understatement know as "litotes." This is where an author presents things subtly, thereby forcing the reader to reach for the meaning, and come to his or her own co...

The most basic definition of a "displaced person" is someone forced to leave his home or country. As such, the phrase applies to almost every character in the story. Most, if not all, of the charac...

In her November 25, 1955 letter to Betty Hester, Flannery O'Connor discussed her goals in writing "The Displaced Person" and her belief that she failed in those goals. We think that what she said i...

The arrival of the Guizacs.The Guizacs come to Mrs. McIntyre's farm after fleeing their home county, Poland. Nobody is sure what to make of them and everyone sees them as foreign and different.Mr....

Land of Opportunity Booker says that in this stage "the hero is in some way incomplete and unfulfilled and his thoughts turn towards the future." Mr. Guizac and his family have arrived in the Unite...

Act I is seen through the eyes of Mrs. Shortley and begins when we see her watching the arrival of the Guizacs from on top of the hill. As the act continues she grows increasingly suspicious that t...

Flannery O'Connor was, as she put it, an "innocent" speller. She preferred to spell words as they sounded to her, usually heavily inflected with Southern dialect. You'll find just as many "oncets"...

"The Displaced Person" might be disturbing for any number of reasons, but sex is not one of them.