Flannery O'Connor's Stories

What are the Initial impression of Julian and his mother? Did the impressions remain consistent or did they change?

Everything that rises must converge

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Both Julian and his mother seem like people stuck in their own worlds. It is like they can't get out of their tired old ideas about race and their own relationship. As his mother rambles on about blacks being inferior, Julian imagines having black friends or even a black girlfriend. He does this not out of sincerity but out of angering mother. They both seem rather superficial, almost flat characters. There is more going on here though. Mother is actually being nice to the little black boy and, with her collapse, Julian is frantic that his mother will die. THere isn't a lot of direct textual evidence that there is more to these people but one certainly gets the feeling that there is more beneath the surface.