In “Enduring the Chill”, the main character comes home to his rural hometown from the big city feeling defeated from his failures as an artist and writer looking for sympathy from his family.  O’Conner uses characterization to help convey important parts of the short story.  She characterizes Asbury as childish especially because he thinks of himself as intellectually superior to everyone else introduced in this story.  Asbury believes his mother ruined his creativity as a writer and artist he blames her in a two journal long letter that he wrote for her to read after he dies that is his only finished piece of writing.  He looks at his sister success of being a county school principal as a failure and that she is inferior to him but the reality of it is that she is more of a success in her job than he is because he hasn’t even published a small poem, as his sister pointed out. The most ironic part of this short story is the fact that what made Asbury sick was his attempt to connect with the blacks that work in his mother’s dairy so that he could write a book about blacks.  The Holy Spirit is a symbol that is brought up often throughout the story through religion and as the symbol of a bird that appears to Asbury multiple times.  O’Conner characterizes the main character, Asbury, as juvenile because he is incapable of comprehending that anything wrong in his life is his fault, so that she can properly convey the importance of taking responsibility for one’s own actions and decisions, with her short story. 

Asbury’s biggest fault is not being able to accept responsibility for himself and O’Conner successfully depicts this by giving us insight into the story through the mind of the main character.  O’Conner showed us what Asbury was thinking about his mother and for what reasons he justifies the blame he puts on her for his failures by bringing up the letter he wrote for her to read once Asbury had passed. “Her literal mind would require some time to discover the significance of it, but he thought she would be able to see that he forgave her for all she had done to him. For that matter, he supposed that she would realize what she had done to him only through the letter.”(O’Conner, 93)  The letter shows that, even during his time away from his mother and family in the city, he still never learned to take responsibility for himself as an adult.

O’Conner uses the irony in the fact that Asbury’s own decision to drink the milk is what changed his sickness and his state of mind to cause him to blame others for his sickly misfortune.  This irony was not introduced until the end of the story when Doctor Block proclaims Asbury became sick from drinking unpasteurized milk and he drinking the milk in the dairy was originally used by the author to show Asbury’s attempt to connect and identify with his mother’s African American farm hands.  “’ Undulant fever ain’t so bad, Azzberry,” he murmured. “It’s the same as Bang’s in a cow.’ The boy gave a low moan and then was quiet. ‘He must have drunk some unpasteurized milk up there,’”(O’Conner, 110)  He feels the need to connect with them because, in a way, they too are less responsible for themselves by working for his mother, being told what they can and cannot do just like children are told what to do before they grow up.  

Asbury unknowingly despised his sister’s success in having a career not because she had a job and he did not but because she took responsibility for her own life and he had not.  “She was eight years older than he was and was principal of the county elementary school.”(O’Conner, 87)  The way O’Conner had expressed Asbury and his sister’s interactions showed their bickering was juvenile and sourced from Asbury’s dislike of her being a responsible adult.  “‘Mary George!’ his mother said sharply. ‘Asbury is sick. Leave him alone.’” (O’Conner, 91)  When O’Conner had Asbury’s mother defending him, telling his sister to leave him alone the furthered his metaphor between Asbury and a child by showing that not only did Asbury not take responsibility for himself but the people around him did not expect him to as well as treating him like a little kid.  The use of the characters around Asbury is a great way of characterizing him because it shows how the people around him characterize him.

Some readers of this story look at the Holy Spirt coming down at the end to signify Asbury’s death, it actually signifies Asbury’s acceptance of his responsibility as an adult.  While, the way I see it, in one way that is true because the child in Asbury does die as he finally realizes and accepts responsibility for himself as an adult.  “He saw that for the rest of his days, frail, racked, but enduring, he would live in the face of a purifying terror. A feeble cry, a last impossible protest escaped him. But the Holy Ghost, emblazoned in ice instead of fire, continued, implacable, to descend.”(O’Conner, 111)  Asbury, at the end of the story will finally accept that he is just going to have to live with the undulant fever and at that instant Asbury’s character goes through change and O’Conner shows this change through a change in characterization at the final sentence of the story.

In conclusion, O’Conner uses the literary tool of characterization to properly convey her message through the short story, by characterizing Asbury as a juvenile.  The rising action of the story leads up to a change in characterization of Asbury that pushes her point across by showing that Asbury has finally accepted responsibility for himself.  O’Conner wants to inform people about the importance of learning to take responsibility for one’s own actions and future.  
