Read part one of my series on Flannery O'Connor here.

Being that “Parker’s Back” is one of O’Connor’s lesser-known stories, it takes a more abstract shot tearing down patriarchal hegemony. In a conservative time, O’Connor’s main character is marked with ink, stained with sin. O’Connor stretches irony to its outmost boundaries by using the male lead to represent the oppressed--and in societal norms, female--entity that suffers most from not only patriarchal hegemony but misogyny as well. While the wife of O.E. Parker gives life to the conservative breath of the patriarchal hegemony respiratory system, Parker, covered in illustrations except for his bare back, feels restless that he can never seem to escape nor please his dear finicky wife. “Every morning he decided he had had enough and he would not return that night; every night he returned” for, “He stayed as if she had him conjured. He was puzzled and ashamed of himself." Not only does this illustrate the invisible and tightening grip his wife Sarah Ruth had on Parker, but it also creates the illusion that the conservative way of thinking, or hegemony, took away the freedom to any other emotion besides despair and bitterness from the oppressed. The ironic male representation of the cause for feminism colors the story with a twist unincorporated in other O’Connor writings. It only becomes stronger when Parker shows his wife the tattoo of God he mentally and physically suffered through to put in place on his back, where she will always have the full view.

The physical beating and emotional torment in consequence to Parker trying something outside of the norm is clearly parallel to what patriarchal hegemony does to the feminist movement. Because Sarah Ruth wanted Parker to follow her rules and stay the same, she fits well into the mold of men forcing women to have little to no place in past and present society. Because Parker expresses himself through his right-wing choices and listens not to what Sarah Ruth asks of him, he lunges forward into the not-yet thought of feminist movement of the 1900s. Although the story may seem to end with the conservative side gaining a win, the outcome is not the point. The means O’Connor used to get to the end, such as the ironic gender-reversal and feminism parallels, is what makes this short story a feminist ideal.

O’Connor has employed feminism in a plethora of her written short stories, not only to subtly declare herself as a feminist, but also to encourage her audiences to disregard what is now known as patriarchal hegemony. Using irony to extremes and putting a huge focus on neglecting stereotypical gender roles, O’Connor accomplished what took many women decades – she became her own woman within her writing, making way for other authors after her to push aside patriarchal hegemony and make room for feminism. She provided this opportunity not only in her writing, but also by carrying it out in her reality.