The list goes on.
Obadiah Elihu Parker is trying to compensate for his estrangement from God through a neurotic obsession with tattoos. David Eggenschwiler* says Parker turns like so many O’Connor characters to the finite world to satisfy a spiritual hunger.
His wife calls it vanity, maybe it is pride and it flirts with idolatry. He breaks the first three commandments** in Parker’s Back and contemplates adding to those.
Parker’s inspiration is a man he sees at a fair.
A single intricate design
…the arabesque of men and beasts and flowers on his skin
appeared to have a subtle motion of its own.
Says Michel Thevoz about tattoos in The Painted Body: ”…they are essentially the marks of the social misfit applied defiantly to the surface which, in Judeo-Christian culture, is considered taboo” (p. 81).
* The Christian Humanism of Flannery O’Connor
** Thou shalt have none other gods before me; thou shalt not make thee any graven image…; thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.
To refresh your memory on just what these sins are, check out
“Seven deadly sins.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 22 Apr 2008, 18:13 UTC. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 24 Apr 2008 <http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Seven_deadly_sins&oldid=207411771>.
