42 pages • 1 hour read
Parker's Back
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Character Analysis
Obadiah Elihue Parker
Parker is a poor man living and working in the South. As a boy, the narrator says, he doesn’t realize that “there was anything out of the ordinary about the fact that he existed” (513), revealing an indifference to the mysteries of life and death. However, when he sees a tattooed man at a fair, something is awakened in him, though it will be years until it comes to fruition.
After a dishonorable discharge from the navy, Parker spends his days picking up odd jobs and spending his spare earnings on tattoos. He considers himself attractive, noting that even an old woman might feel drawn to a young man “particularly if he was as attractive as Parker felt he was” (511), which signifies his attachment to physicality over spirituality. This attachment to the physical realm is further explored through Parker’s constant pursuit of the “intricate arabesque of colors” that tattoos provide (514). Furthermore, his desire to only get tattoos where he can see them indicates that Parker is uninterested in things that aren’t tangible and visible. Similarly, the pleasures he finds in life are primarily physical (such as tattoos, drinking, and sex) and he refuses to look inward for a more meaningful experience.
Despite his indifference to spiritual matters, spiritual matters are not indifferent to him. This is demonstrated through moments when he feels compelled to take a certain course of action without understanding why. When he sees the tattooed man as an adolescent, he is “filled with emotion, lifted up as some people are when the flag passes” (513). By comparing his emotion to the sensation of patriotism, O’Connor shows how some spiritual part of himself has awakened. He is aware of more than just physical sensations and pleasures. Similarly, when he meets Sarah Ruth, he pursues her without knowing why. Even though he finds her unattractive and is irritated by her religiosity, he continues to go to her home to court her, even after repeatedly deciding that he won’t anymore. Finally, when he crashes his tractor and finds himself at the foot of a burning tree, he is compelled to go get a tattoo of God on his back. This decision isn’t one that he ponders or even consciously acknowledges; it seems a compulsive urge that springs into his mind fully formed. Despite his resistance to spirituality, Parker experiences “a great change in his life, a leap forward into a worse unknown” (521), through divine intervention in unusual ways.
Parker is a dynamic character. By the final pages, he has changed, completing an inner transformation that takes place over the course of the story. Despite his outward resistance to spiritual matters, his inward being is compelled in certain directions and he follows those compulsions. When he gets the Byzantine Christ tattooed on his back and is forced by the tattoo artist to look at the design in a mirror, he understands that the “eyes that were now forever on his back were eyes to be obeyed” (527). Parker vocally acknowledges this transformation by speaking his name aloud, Obadiah, which means servant of God. In this way, Parker acknowledges and accepts his spiritual identity.
Sarah Ruth Cates
Sarah Ruth is described as unattractive, with skin that is “thin and drawn as tight as the skin on an onion” and eyes that are “sharp like the points of two icepicks” (510). These unflattering comparisons not only reinforce Parker’s focus on physical appearances but also hint at her temperament, which is cold and off-putting. In contrast to Parker, she seems to care very little for physical pleasures, eschewing Parker’s hedonistic habits, and refusing to “smoke or dip, drink whiskey, use bad language or paint her face” (510). Even seemingly harmless physical pleasures, such as well-seasoned food, don’t matter to her, and Parker bemoans that she just “threw food in a pot and let it boil” (519).
Raised in a poor family the daughter of a “Straight Gospel preacher” (517), Sarah Ruth seems primarily concerned with matters of the utmost practicality. Parker courts her by bringing her baskets of fruit, and this pragmatic approach seems acceptable to her. When he makes an advance on her, she hits him and states, “Not until after we’re married” (518), even though the issue of marriage hadn’t been previously discussed. In the story’s final scene, when Parker comes home after getting his tattoo, she brings up the tractor he wrecked and immediately sets about trying to resolve the issue of his employment. This further reinforces her characterization as a woman who takes a practical approach without giving too much thought to intangible things such as emotions.
This practicality is also her approach when it comes to religion. Although she is a deeply religious person, and repeatedly expresses concern that Parker is not saved, her idea of religion is a practical matter that results in a set of rules. When Parker reveals the tattoo of God on his back that he thought would please her, she screams, “Idolatry! Enflaming yourself with idols under every green tree!” (529). Though Parker sees the tattoo as an image of God, to her it breaks the commandment that forbids creating images of divine things. Sarah Ruth follows Christianity like a law, without fully experiencing its mysteries.
Sarah Ruth is a static character, which means that, unlike Parker, she does not change throughout the story. Her inability to bear witness to Parker’s transformation at the end of the story reveals her lack of spirituality.
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