Voyeurism and Negligence in Flannery O'Connor's "The River"

Abstract:Throughout "The River," the reader encounters characters who are voyeuristic and others who are negligent. These two concepts (or qualities) are usually discussed in relation to sociological manifestations of human culture rather than literature. During the last decades, voyeurism has been largely explored in studies about television and film, which place the spectator in the role of a witness who only confronts—but does not intervene in—a scene. With "The River," O'Connor's voyeuristic characters are not innocent witnesses; rather, their presence is featured as triggering the macabre results of the action.