A Late Encounter With the Enemy

What is a Man?

O’Connor presents various answers to the query.

In this story, General Sash is viewed from many points of view…

---his own---his family’s---the public’s

The portrait that finally emerges is one of the most effectively achieved comic creations in O’Connor’s works

The Story has a tragic dimension as well

The General’s curiously realized death leads to a sober reflection on the mystery which surrounds the end of life.

General Tennessee Flintrock Sash

One hundred and four years old and confined to a wheel chair

Exceedingly vain

Despite his age and condition, he see himself as quite handsome

He has agreed to appear at his granddaughters graduation

He does just because he wants to appear in public

“When he put on his full dress general’s uniform, he knew there was nothing to match him anywhere”

He refused to wear his teeth because the thought his profile was more striking

without them.

Like Many of O’Connor’s characters, General Sash’s vanity governs his attitudes toward himself and the

world

Vanity is the key concept in the story

Dual sense of an exaggerated self-esteem and of the uselessness of a life

unrelated to any purpose outside itself.

Sally Poker Sash

Her grandfather is source of pride

Spent the past 20 summers getting her degree

Prayed her grandfather would last for the ceremony

His presence would be a public affirmation of her aristocratic heritage.

The legend has been embellished

His role in the Civil War was relatively insignificant

He was a foot soldier…not a general

He was elevated to the rank of Major by Sally for the premier of GONE WITH

THE WIND

When she arranges for him to sit on stage at the graduation, she says he was

a General.

Medically, the General is little more than a human vegetable.

His feet are completely dead

His knees work like rusty hinges

His Kidneys function when they would

But his heart persisted doggedly to beat

John Wesley Poker Sash

delegated to the task of tending the old man.

The Young Boy Scout is little concerned abut his Grandfather’s celebrated status.

To him the old man was a piece of cumbersome baggage.

He sits the old man, hatless, in the burning sun while he stands in the

shade drinking a Coca-cola.

To the faithful preservers of the southern heritage, the old manis a

valuable relic

On Confederate Memorial Day, he is put on display with other Civil War artifacts and at the Capitol City

Museum.

In the spring he leads atmosphere to the plantation homes annual open house.

For the General, the past has faded to a near-total blankness.

He no longer remembers the war or his part of it

Hearing the names of Chickamauga and Lee makes him wonder what battles he had fought

The vulgarization of his past by the glamorous present is epitomized in the Atlanta premiere.

Sally’s artificial flower perfectly reflects the synthetic view of history.

Sally successfully gets her parent on stage for her own moment of

truth, but he does not make it through the ceremony

Although the most significant episode in the old man’s life occurs onstage, in full view of an audience, neither he nor the

onlookers are aware of what is happening.

The question what is a man can never be fully answered.

The central episodes of a man’s life can be viewed, but the mystery

which outlines his career can never be fully dispelled.