Many authors have written beautiful, captivating prose, filling their stories with lush sensory detail and creative, twisting plots. It is rarer, but even more enjoyable, to find literature that reveals some element of the human condition, which leaves readers with an idea to reflect on long after we turn the final page. Flannery O’Connor’s short stories fit that description. The Catholic woman from Georgia, who died tragically young at age thirty-nine, created characters whose emotions, motives, and experiences always cause me to reflect on my own affections and actions. One theme exposed by many of O’Connor’s works is the danger of self-centered ambition. A Prize Worth Pursuing? In one such story, she describes a boy rushing through the thick underbrush and tall trees of an Appalachian forest. After catching sight of an injured turkey during a morning ramble in the woods, young Ruller decided to chase it, a choice that takes him across hedges, hills, fences, and roads. Many times the eleven-year-old believes he has the bird cornered, only for it to wobble away ahead of him again. Finally, when Ruller is ready to abandon his quest, with his shirt torn, his forehead knotted after crashing into a tree, and his lungs desperately short of air, he catches sight of “a pile of ruffled bronze with a red head lying limp along the ground.” The turkey gave up the struggle for life and perished, leaving the boy victorious. How Not to Chase a Turkey: Flannery O’Connor and Self-Centered Ambition Stanley Schwartz
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