 Julian and his mother are symbiotic; the singular thing separating them is time. They both are mirrored images of one another, the mother just hasn't taken the time to reevaluate. Julian is a small-town, Southern "scholar" who believes that he is far superior to the people around him, due to his third-rate education. Julian's mother is an elderly woman who's once "glorious" past has been abolished and is now clinging to her proud past. O'Connor has cliched her work through the use of a plethora of ironic situations found throughout the story. 

Near the end of O'Connor's "Everything That Rises Must Converge", the main character, Julian, says "you are not who you think you are"(246). Julian spends the entirety of the story feverishly striving to dethrone his mother, the one whom this quote is directed. According to Julian, his mother, who's idea of reality is not an accurate portrayal of which she really is, is a racist "nobody". 

Near the beginning of the story Julian's mother purchases a unique (and "hideous") hat because the salesclerk assures her that the "hat does something for you and you do something for the hat, and besides, with that hat, you won't meet yourself coming and going" (236). She purchases the hat so that she may once again have something that none other will have, just like her previous abundance of wealth had allotted her.

Julian graduated from college, with his mother's financial help, and feels that his "first-rate education" from a "third-rate university" has expanded his soul; therefore, is more superior than his charges. His degree is assumed to be in English and he has aspirations to be a great writer. In reality, he is a salesman who sales typewriters, the very object who's purpose is to do what he dreams of doing. This cliched metaphor is terribly ironic: a man forced to promote a machine that achieves his dreams of writing.

Julian's mother is racist. Her plantation-owning grandfather owned two hundred slaves and she is proud of that heritage; therefore, she has solidified the morale and ideals of that heritage. She states that "they [Negroes] were better off when they were [slaves]" and that "they should rise, but on their own side of the fence" (237). Along with singling out the Negro-race by using words like "they" and "old darky", she then further reinforces her racist ideals by giving a colored-boy a nickel for being colored. She has been conditioned by her "roots" to react this way towards race. Julian is disgusted with his mother's racist attitude and pities her ignorance.

Julian refuses to acknowledge that he is racist like his mother. He feels that he is "above" those petty differences because of his extensive education. O'Connor has chosen Julian to act as the narrator of this story. Bearing that in mind, when referring to the Negro-race, Julian uses the term "Negros". This term was politically correct at the time; however, he never refers to someone of his same race as "Caucasian", nor gives any indication of his or her skin color. On page 238, a woman is sitting on the bus and Julian describes her as "a thin woman with protruding teeth and yellow hair", but when any person of color is introduced into the story, O'Connor specifically gives indication that the person is of color. Julian is clearly racist, even going so far as to seek out Negros for his own self-fulfillment. An example of Julian's self-fulfilling attitude occurs later in the story when he says that he would like to bring home a Negro woman as his bride just to spite his mother and to raise her blood pressure. He goes on to say that he wishes that his mother would be forced to have a Negro man as her doctor after this shocking news of matrimony. On page 242, Julian reveals, "he had never been successful at making any Negro friends. He had tried to strike up an acquaintance on the bus with some of the better types". He does not see that he is racist, and that is ironic.

Perhaps the most ironic detail of this story is Julian's mother's hat and how it relates to Julian himself. His mother's illusion of grandeur was demolished when she ran into another woman with the same, unique hat that had psychologically placed her on a pedestal. Julian harshly makes fun of her by saying that her "punishment exactly fits [her] pettiness" (243). At the end of the story, Julian is talking to his dying mother and says, "you are not who you think you are" (246). His mother dies soon after this statement and he is forced to see that he is no different from his mother and instantly regrets all of his ignorant banter. He is no "better" than his mother. He is just as blind to his faults as she was and he has been just as reluctant to evolve his ways, just like his mother; the woman whom he despised for being a foolish "nobody".

Flannery O'Connor used ironic themes freely whilst writing "Everything that Rises Must Converge". Though cliched, her use of irony was brilliant. She added a dimension of reality to her story. Julian battled with false self-realization and, through a series of ironic events, discovered who he truly was, not who he had imagined himself to be.

