This last part of the brilliant conference on Moby Dick begins with a continuation of the discourse on materialism in the American way of life. Dr. White discusses how materialism stunts personality and how, in our culture, even rebels against the bland comfort of common life all rebel the exact same way. The point is made that true, healthy diversity and individualism can come only from the Catholic Faith. Dr. White then makes a thorough investigation of the Calvinistic conception of God against which Melville protests in Moby Dick through the character of Captain Ahab. He shows that Ahab’s fury against this Calvinist God is justified, going through three aspects of the Calvinist religion which alienate men from God. The natural responses to this alienation, worship of nature and destruction of nature, are then discussed and Captain Ahab’s adherence to the latter response analyzed. Dr. White explains the nature of Ahab’s madness; he has a “great madness,” stemming from a very legitimate cause. The end of the novel and of the lecture is reached as Dr. White discusses Ahab’s last words and the death of him and his crew.
Flannery O’Connor’s “Revelation” is, according to Dr. White, not just a great Catholic story but a great piece of literature. He likens it to old fashioned Catholic art, i.e., stories taken from scripture and presented in dramatic form. Interspersed with his impassioned readings, Revelation is what Dr. White considers to be to be a Catholic truth; derived from the Gospel of St. Luke, presented directly and openly; and the first representation of purgatory in literature since Dante.
In this talk Dr. White discusses O’Connor’s “A Good Man is Hard to Find” within the context of the four stages of violent charity; which like Christ’s suffering is a charity that wounds. He opines that it is O’Connor’s vision that the modern world is mad, sealed off from God’s grace. Dr. White discusses what he describes as the comic first half of the story along with the shocking second half.
Here Dr. White makes passing reference to O’Connor’s affection for the films of W.C. Fields, as he segues into a discussion of “Everything That Rises Must Converge.” White characterizes this story as frightening, and one in which O’Connor presents an empty, dead world wherein she deals with intellectual pride and the racism of the deep South in a bygone era.
Here Dr. White makes passing reference to O’Connor’s affection for the films of W.C. Fields, as he segues into a discussion of “Everything That Rises Must Converge.” White characterizes this story as frightening, and one in which O’Connor presents an empty, dead world wherein she deals with intellectual pride and the racism of the deep South in a bygone era.
Dr. White describes “The Temple of the Holy Ghost” as a gentle piece of work punctuated, however, with grotesque elements. He characterizes O’Connor as a great Catholic artist of our own time and extols this story as one of her few, if not only, openly Catholic works. The title, according to White, speaks to the essence of “matter” and “spirit.”
