"The Geranium" Summary

"The Geranium" is the first in this collection of thirty-one stories. O'Connor writes from the point of view of Old Dudley, an aged father of a woman from the South, now living in a depressing walk-up apartment in New York City. Old Dudley's observations of his "new world" are written through dialect and as internal dialogue. O'Connor reveals her feelings about racism in a period of upheaval in the country at that time, as resentments and adjustments by both whites and blacks are becoming more and more common.

Old Dudley's longing for "home" is poignant and vivid; he sits for hours watching a red geranium in a pot on the windowsill of an apartment across the alley way, worrying that the sun is too hot for it and that it needs water. O'Connor's genius is in her use of...