Everything That Rises Must Converge

First published in New World Writing magazine in 1961, “Everything That Rises Must Converge” is the title story from Flannery O’Connor’s final collection of short stories. Hailed as one of the United States’ greatest writers, O’Connor is best known for her award-winning short fiction and her contributions to the genre of Southern Gothic literature. The collection Everything That Rises Must Converge was published posthumously in 1965. It contains nine stories, seven of which appeared previously in various publications. Three of these stories won the prestigious O. Henry Award for short fiction, and “Everything That Rises Must Converge” was O’Connor’s second O. Henry Award-winning story. It explores themes commonly found in the author’s work, including morality, race, and changes to Southern culture in the mid-20th century.

This guide refers to “Everything That Rises Must Converge” as it appears in the Library of America’s 1988 edition of Flannery O’Connor: Collected Works (Kindle edition).

Content Warning: “Everything That Rises Must Converge” contains instances of racism as well as the use of racist slurs, which are replicated in this guide only in direct quotations.

The story is set in an unnamed town in the American South during the civil rights movement, sometime in the 1950s or 1960s.