The Violent Bear It Away is a fiction novel published in 1960 by the American author Flannery O’Connor. Written in O’Connor’s trademark Southern Gothic style, the book chronicles the inner turmoil of a 14-year-old boy from rural Tennessee as he struggles against his destiny of becoming a prophet. It is an expansion of O’Connor’s 1955 short story, “You Can’t Be Any Poorer Than Dead,” which is presented here as the book’s first chapter.

This study guide refers to the 2007 edition published by Farrar, Strauss and Giroux.

Plot Summary

For his entire life, 14-year-old Francis Marion Tarwater is groomed by his mentally ill great uncle Mason to become a Christian prophet like himself. Having lost his mother in a car accident and his father in a subsequent suicide, the infant Tarwater is initially raised by his uncle Rayber, an atheist schoolteacher. At only a few months old, Tarwater is kidnapped by Mason to a rural plot of land known as Powderhead. When Rayber and a social worker named Bernice attempt to retrieve Tarwater a few days later, Mason shoots Rayber in the leg and ear, causing the schoolteacher to take no further action to recover the boy. It is later revealed that Rayber, at the age of seven, was the victim of kidnapping by Mason. Although his father retrieved him after only four days, the experience haunted Rayber. It caused him to obsess over Jesus until the age of 14 when he finally renounced Christianity. To this day, Rayber fears that he will inherit Mason’s mental illness and goes to great lengths to quell any feelings of passion, even those toward his intellectually-disabled son, Bishop.

At the start of the novel, Mason dies of a heart attack. Before his death, Mason extracts two promises from Tarwater: that he will give Mason a Christian burial, and that he will find a way to baptize Bishop. Upon starting to dig a grave for Mason, Tarwater begins to hear a voice in his head—one that is strongly suggested to be Satan—expressing views that run contrary to his great uncle’s religious fanaticism. At the voice’s urging, Tarwater abandons the digging of Mason’s grave and proceeds to get drunk and pass out. When he awakes, Tarwater burns down the cabin at Powderhead with Mason’s body still inside the home, thus depriving him of a Christian burial. Unbeknownst to Tarwater, a neighbor named Buford already buried Mason while Tarwater was unconscious. Tarwater hitchhikes to a nearby city and tracks down Rayber. At first, Rayber is overjoyed to see Tarwater. From the outset, he strives to give the boy a secular upbringing, thus reversing Mason’s religious influence. Yet it only takes a day for Rayber to realize that the psychological damage caused by Mason will not be easily reversed. Arrogant and defiant, Tarwater shows no interest in any of the cultural or intellectual pursuits Rayber presents to him.

One day at a city park, Rayber watches as Tarwater slowly approaches Bishop while he plays in a fountain. Just before Tarwater reaches Bishop, the real reason for the boy’s visit dawns on Rayber: Tarwater wants to baptize his son. After intervening at the last possible moment, Rayber resolves to cure Tarwater of this compulsion. To do so, Rayber plans to bring Tarwater back to Powderhead under the guise of a fishing trip at a lake 30 miles away from the homestead. While Tarwater waits at a lodge, Rayber revisits Powderhead but finds the experience too traumatizing for him to return with Tarwater. Instead, Rayber takes a more direct approach toward Tarwater, giving the boy a choice: baptize Bishop now and get it over with, or work every day to fight the compulsion. After an argument, Rayber allows Tarwater to take Bishop out on the lake in a rented boat, believing that the more comfortable Tarwater becomes with Bishop the less likely he will be to baptize him.

While on the lake, the voice in Tarwater’s head tells him to drown Bishop. He does so while reciting baptismal verses, thus both drowning and baptizing the child in one act. From the lodge, Rayber hears Bishop bellowing, but it is too late to act. The wailing stops, and Rayber knows Bishop is dead. Feeling nothing at the loss of his child, Rayber faints. While hitchhiking back to Powderhead, Tarwater is picked up by a pale gentleman driving a lavender car. The man offers Tarwater a sip of whiskey that appears to have been drugged. Tarwater passes out, and the man drives to a secluded clearing and rapes the boy while he is unconscious.

After awaking naked and alone, an agonized Tarwater walks the rest of the way to Powderhead, setting the path behind him ablaze with lit matches. When he arrives at Powderhead, Tarwater discovers a wooden cross above a mound of dirt and learns from Buford that Mason received a Christian burial after all. As he looks out on the landscape before him and sees visions of Mason and a boy eating the bread of life, Tarwater finally hears the voice of God. He resolves from that point forward to embrace his destiny as a prophet and to return to the city to save the souls of the damned.