SOURCE: "The Failure of Ritual in The Unspoiled Reaction'," in Renascence, Vol. XXIV, No. 3, Spring, 1972, pp. 155-58.

In the following excerpt, Gillen explores themes of religious faith and ritual in the short story "The Unspoiled Reaction. "

Mccarthy's Moralism:

Miss McCarthy's attitude toward the people in her stories is one of contempt and outrage, but it is not just a shallow, miffed, critical attitude. It originates in a deep and almost continually disappointed moralism. She wants people with intelligence to be good and decent and productive, and that they are not arouses the furious broken-hearted chastiser in her. Once in a while, however, she gets carried away and becomes pedantic, but this is a minor fault.

Chandler Brossard, in The American Mercury, February, 1951.

Mary McCarthy's "The Unspoiled Reaction" deals with the interaction between the "knowing" world of adults and the relatively unsophisticated and, to that extent, innocent world of...