In "Everything That Rises Must Converge" by Flannery O'Connor there are two main characters, Julian and his mother. The story is about how Julian's mother has a blood pressure problem and must go to the Y to lose weight. There's a catch though, she is racist. In the story, Julian takes his mother downtown because he feels like he owes her after she raised him; he does not like or respect his mother though. As they take the trip to the Y, he must deal with all of her racist comments and ideals and he tries to anger her because he strongly disagrees with her. By the end of the story, an event happens with a negro woman that eventually sets her over the edge and she winds up dying. This is when Julian feels very bad and realizes he actually did love his mother. In this story, neither of the characters hold a higher moral ground. Julian tries to but winds up just being as bad as his mother. Both of these character's flawed morals show throughout the story in many ways. 

In "Everything That Rises Must Converge," the character Julian does not hold a higher moral standing. His mother is very racist as she was raised around the time of segregation, except Julian does not agree with the racist way of thinking and it highly angers him. The reason Julian does not hold a higher moral standing is almost ironic. This is because he tries to get back at his mother by sitting and talking to African Americans. He imagines himself bringing home a negro doctor and marrying her just to see the look on his mom's face and that she actually has a great job. In doing all this, he is actually being racist as well. He is treating the African American race as if they are objects for him to use just to annoy his mother. He almost does not even think of them as people and this is not morally correct. "This is the woman I have chosen" (O'Connor, 242). This proves Julian does not fantasize about falling in love with a woman but instead he fantasizes about finding an intelligent and successful negro woman who is black and he fantasizes about marrying her and this is only to piss off his mother, not because he loves this woman. He just wants to use her as a tool for making himself feel better by angering his mother. Another time when this happened was when Julian sat on the bus next to the black man, "he would have liked to get in conversation with the negro" (241). Julian does not even think of this man as a man, He just thinks of him as "the negro", just an object, not a living, thinking, individual person. He just sat next to this man so that he could once again annoy his mother. He chose a black man on purpose once again and this proves how he is also racist and has no higher morals than his mother. Another reason Julian does not hold any higher morals than his mother besides being racist is that he is plain old mean to her. His goal throughout the story is to annoy her and he only takes her out to the Y because he feels obligated to, not because he wants to spend time with his mother. He is always throwing rude comments at his mother such as: "I hate to see you behave like this ...  Just like a child. I should be able to expect more of you" (246). That is definitely no way to talk to your mother, especially when she is always nice to him. She always said nice things about him, like "Rome wasn't built in a day" (236) when she was saying he would be successful when he thought he was going nowhere in life. Julian never appreciated her caring or even said anything nice back; he was just repeatedly rude to her. It was not until his mother died that Julian actually felt bad and wanted to help her and this is just another reason that shows Julian does not hold high morals. If Julian really wanted to have true good morals, then he would be kind to his mother and help her while she needs help because after all, she did take care of him as a poor single mother, and that is very hard to do. 

While Julian's mother comes off as an innocent, kind woman in this story, she also does not have any higher morals than Julian. Julian's mother is a very racist woman, and she shows it all throughout the story, especially when there is black people around. Julian's mother still believes in the old way of thinking, which was back when there were slaves which is why she is racist, "Your great-grandfather had a plantation and two hundred slaves" (237). Julian's mother is always referencing back to when the family owned slaves because she wishes things were still that way, and she still believes black people should be enslaved. While this way of thinking was completely normal and thought of as correct at one point in the past, it is definitely not now which is why she is considered racist and does not hold any higher morals than Julian. Julian's mother still also does racist actions, which definitely do not show high morals. Right after Julian, his mother, and the black woman with her young son got off the bus she tried to give him a piece of change. "I can't find but a penny she whispered", "Don't do it! Julian said fiercely between his teeth" (244). Back in the day, that would have been seen as normal, but at this time it was seen as highly racist, and the little boy's mother freaked out and screamed at Julian's mother. If Julian's mother truly wanted to have great morals, then she would quit her old ways of thinking. She would come to the realization that things are different now and she needs to be more accepting of other types of people that are not like her, most importantly African American people because this is who she discriminates against the most throughout the story. 

In the story "Everything That Rises Must Converge" by Flannery O'Connor, neither of the two characters, Julian and his mother, hold a higher moral ground than each other and just do not have high morals in general. Julian's mother does not have high morals due to her being racist and Julian is just mean in general, and he tries to show how non-racist he is but actually winds up being racist in the process. The two characters in this story constantly seem against each other all throughout the story and it greatly lessens their morals as they are mother and son and should be working together. The only way for them to both be better people would be to do a big mental change because they both think very incorrectly about things. 

