Though stressing that Flannery OConnor was first and foremost a writer of fiction, John Desmond maintains in Risen Sons that her orthodox Catholic theology stands at the center of her vision, providing the metaphysical base from which the fiction evolved. Given this religious context, Desmond contends that OConnors stated view of fiction-writing as an incarnational act suggests a direct connection between the practice of fiction-writing and the Incarnation of Christ-the pivotal historic event which her fiction seeks to imitate and through which her vision is revealed.OConnors attempts to create images that would connect the Incarnation with fictional incarnation, Mystery with mystery, were not immediately realized in her early works. It was only with Wise Blood that she came to recognize Christian historical vision as her particular fictional subject and the analogical method as the appropriate fictional strategy. This discovery made possible the convergence of her metaphysics, historical vision, and artistic technique, providing the thematic and structural basis for the quality of unique wholeness that distinguishes all her works.Desmond suggests that OConnor achieved the fullest development of her analogical vision and most complete identification of thought and technique in her novel The Violent Bear It Away. Her dramatic rendering of the route Tarwater takes before he can comprehend the transcendent, mysterious source of personality and the meaning of personhood in history parallels the actions of Christ, embodying OConnors complex and dramatic vision of the minds engagement with history in all its ultimate extensions of meaning.