The purpose of this thesis is to explain how God is present in select Flannery O'Connor stories. It argues that although God is not present in the text, it is an entity that intervenes to deliver the characters from their false perceptions of self. Through the theories of Jacques Lacan and Sigmund Freud, literary criticism regarding psychoanalysis and O'Connor's work, an understanding of the writer's own views on God and literature, and a close reading of the text, we find that God is a hidden body that can be uncovered via functions of the unconscious. The research argues that the strength of the divine is felt when elements of the unconscious make their way into consciousness, regardless of any and all defenses put up by the conscious mind and the ego of the characters. It concludes by asserting that O'Connor affords the same opportunity for the reader.
