Parker's Back

Use these questions or activities to help gauge students’ familiarity with and spark their interest in the context of the work, giving them an entry point into the text itself.

Short Answer

1. Consider the terms “religion” and “spirituality.” What are the similarities in these two terms’ meanings? What are the differences? In what ways do these two terms overlap?

Teaching Suggestion: This Short Answer question orients students with an important distinction in the story: the difference between religion and spirituality. While religion usually refers to a shared way of life and a set of external representations of faith that identify a person with a specific belief system, spirituality is a more personal connection with a specific deity or belief system and is one’s internal representation of faith. These two often coexist. In this story, however, they are contrasted through the characterizations of protagonist Parker and his wife, Sarah Ruth. Sarah Ruth possesses a direct and inflexible view of religion, primarily based on social expectations of the Christian belief system, where there are dogmatic delineations of sin and truth. Parker, by contrast, is less concerned with faith as a religious set of rules and is drawn to the spirituality of belief. His Transformation of the Soul is evidence of the importance of mystery in faith, a concept that author O’Connor explores in her other works.