Ann Napolitano toured Flannery O’Connor’s childhood home in Savannah. The tour guide emphasized a photo of the author at age three:
“A little after this point,” he said, “something happened to change this little girl into the Flannery we recognize. Between the ages of four and six, she started to call her parents Edward and Regina. She began to speak to everyone as if she were an adult. She called her teachers by their first names, and that got her into some trouble at school. Her parents allowed it, though. They were ever after Edward and Regina to her.”
I love this anecdote, because the obvious assumption would be that something sinister had happened to Flannery during that period to alter her, or force her to grow up too quickly. But, as the tour guide assured me, and as I’d learned from my own research, that simply wasn’t the case. Flannery had, on the whole, a happy childhood. She simply did away with the trappings of childhood as soon as possible. She became herself earlier than most of us do. The vision of a fierce five-year Flannery pleases me, but it also rings true. The true Flannery could never be denied, not even by childish impulses.
The Dish 