SOURCE: McDermott, John V. “O'Connor's ‘The Train.’” Explicator 60, no. 3 (spring 2002): 168-69.

In the following essay, McDermott analyzes O'Connor's early short story “The Train.”

It has been said that Flannery O'Connor's “creative and technical powers [are] scarcely foreseeable in ‘The Train’, […] a seldom read story […] not included in either of her celebrated collections” (Harrison 287). The story, according to the criticism, “produces no character change, and there is little if any decisive action or even inclusive comment” (Harrison 290). But a close examination of the story reveals O'Connor's more than subtle artistry in both her “creative and technical powers” (Harrison 287), for it is precisely O'Connor's point that Hazel Wickers, the story's protagonist, is unable, or more accurately unwilling, to change. His mindset never veers off its blinding course. Like a train moving through a dimly lit tunnel with its singular light attempting to penetrate the darkness, Wickers's vision cannot reach beyond...