What do you think?
Rate this book
Greenleaf
24 pages, Unknown Binding
1 person is currently reading
67 people want to read
About the author
Flannery O'Connor
207 books5,468 followersCritics note novels
Wise Blood
(1952) and
The Violent Bear It Away
(1960) and short stories, collected in such works as
A Good Man Is Hard to Find
(1955), of American writer Mary Flannery O'Connor for their explorations of religious faith and a spare literary style.
The Georgia state college for women educated O’Connor, who then studied writing at the Iowa writers' workshop and wrote much of Wise Blood at the colony of artists at Yaddo in upstate New York. She lived most of her adult life on Andalusia, ancestral farm of her family outside Milledgeville, Georgia.
O’Connor wrote Everything That Rises Must Converge (1964). When she died at the age of 39 years, America lost one of its most gifted writers at the height of her powers.
Survivors published her essays were published in Mystery and Manners (1969). Her Complete Stories , published posthumously in 1972, won the national book award for that year. Survivors published her letters in The Habit of Being (1979). In 1988, the Library of America published Collected Works of Flannery O'Connor, the first so honored postwar writer.
People in an online poll in 2009 voted her Complete Stories as the best book to win the national book award in the six-decade history of the contest.
The Georgia state college for women educated O’Connor, who then studied writing at the Iowa writers' workshop and wrote much of Wise Blood at the colony of artists at Yaddo in upstate New York. She lived most of her adult life on Andalusia, ancestral farm of her family outside Milledgeville, Georgia.
O’Connor wrote Everything That Rises Must Converge (1964). When she died at the age of 39 years, America lost one of its most gifted writers at the height of her powers.
Survivors published her essays were published in Mystery and Manners (1969). Her Complete Stories , published posthumously in 1972, won the national book award for that year. Survivors published her letters in The Habit of Being (1979). In 1988, the Library of America published Collected Works of Flannery O'Connor, the first so honored postwar writer.
People in an online poll in 2009 voted her Complete Stories as the best book to win the national book award in the six-decade history of the contest.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews
April 20, 2026
Greenleaf by Flannery O’Connor
The heroine of this short story is Mrs. May and the plot, the farm and the help recall another story- The Displaced Person. There is help at the farm, where there is a woman in charge, not young anymore and the man working for her is not the hardest working of all, in fact there is more than a similitude between Greenleaf and the hired help in The Displaced Person, Mr. Shortley.
From the start, there is a problem with a bull, which will put a tragic twist to the tale at the end. Mrs. May is unhappy because the animal is loose on her property, messing around and mixing with her cows…here I am not sure what the issue is: the bull is of inferior breed and I assume that the resulting calves would not be so desirable, but I am not sure I get the point.
Mrs. May has two sons who fight each other and have deeply disappointed their mother. One of them went into the Army, but came back only a private, as opposed to the twins of Greenleaf, who came back sergeants, married to French women and went on to get an Education, receiving help from the State. It feels like Mrs. May is very envious of her employee and his twins even if the dialogue and even some of her inner thoughts ostentatiously prove otherwise.
On a visit to the twins’ farm, Mrs. May says about the dogs: “you can tell the class of people, by the class of dog”. As the children wait on the porch: “these people can stay looking at you for hours”
There is a lot of humor in this story which has tragic aspects as well. Mrs. May has all the contempt in the world for Mrs. Greenleaf: one time, as she was walking on her property, she was shocked to see Mrs. Greenleaf on the ground, legs and arms apart, shouting : Jesus”! Mrs. May feels that Jesus should be called in the church, not outside and the fact that the woman was screaming this word laying on the ground, made the situation even more disgusting.
The story of the bull, takes an unexpected turn for the worse, in fact worst possible, if unexpected finale. I will not say what happens, so I will not spoil it for the eventual reader who has reached so far.
This is a beautiful, funny and sad story.
The heroine of this short story is Mrs. May and the plot, the farm and the help recall another story- The Displaced Person. There is help at the farm, where there is a woman in charge, not young anymore and the man working for her is not the hardest working of all, in fact there is more than a similitude between Greenleaf and the hired help in The Displaced Person, Mr. Shortley.
From the start, there is a problem with a bull, which will put a tragic twist to the tale at the end. Mrs. May is unhappy because the animal is loose on her property, messing around and mixing with her cows…here I am not sure what the issue is: the bull is of inferior breed and I assume that the resulting calves would not be so desirable, but I am not sure I get the point.
Mrs. May has two sons who fight each other and have deeply disappointed their mother. One of them went into the Army, but came back only a private, as opposed to the twins of Greenleaf, who came back sergeants, married to French women and went on to get an Education, receiving help from the State. It feels like Mrs. May is very envious of her employee and his twins even if the dialogue and even some of her inner thoughts ostentatiously prove otherwise.
On a visit to the twins’ farm, Mrs. May says about the dogs: “you can tell the class of people, by the class of dog”. As the children wait on the porch: “these people can stay looking at you for hours”
There is a lot of humor in this story which has tragic aspects as well. Mrs. May has all the contempt in the world for Mrs. Greenleaf: one time, as she was walking on her property, she was shocked to see Mrs. Greenleaf on the ground, legs and arms apart, shouting : Jesus”! Mrs. May feels that Jesus should be called in the church, not outside and the fact that the woman was screaming this word laying on the ground, made the situation even more disgusting.
The story of the bull, takes an unexpected turn for the worse, in fact worst possible, if unexpected finale. I will not say what happens, so I will not spoil it for the eventual reader who has reached so far.
This is a beautiful, funny and sad story.
January 8, 2025
Stunning! O’Connor is using a repeating motif here. An older divorced or widowed woman running a dairy farm with troublesome hired tenant help. Colorful descriptions of pastures, forests, suns - at many different times of day - and sky. Be surprised.
May 27, 2022
Mrs May owns a small dairy farm. Mr Greenleaf is her manager. He is one of those who keep their boss in a constant state of irritated frustration, but not so much that warrants firing but dissatisfaction all the same. One day she noticed a stray bull wreaking havoc with her dairy cows. It turns out that this bull has escaped from a neighboring farm owned by his two grown sons. She drives over to tell them their bull is at her place. But when she arrives they aren’t there and one of their men relate that the Greenleaf boys had just bought the bull. But he is so rowdy he doubts they want him back. She then threatens that if the boys don’t retrieve their bull by tomorrow, she will shoot him. The next day comes, nobody appears to retrieve the bull, she orders Mr Greenleaf to shoot him, and Mr Greenleaf is who he is and,,,Five stars!
May 6, 2022
Takin’ on Proverbs 15:17
February 16, 2026
"...the bull, silvered in the moonlight, stood under it, its head raised--like some patient god come down to woo her--"
"She had been aware that whatever it was had been eating as long as she had had the place and had eaten everything from the beginning of the fence line up to her house and now was eating the house and calmly with the same steady rhythm would continue through the house, eating her and the boys, and then on, eating everything but the Greenleafs, on and on, eating everything until nothing was left but the Greenleafs on a little island all their own in the middle of what had been her place."
"'Hit looks to me like one or both of them boys would not make their maw ride out in the middle of the night thisaway. If hit was my boys, they would of got thet bull up theirself.'"
"...she leaned out the kitchen door, a small woman with pale near-sighted eyes and gray hair that rose on top like the crest of some disturbed bird."
"...she said in the restrained screech that had become habitual with her."
"They were as different, she said, as night and day. The only thing they did have in common was that neither of them cared what happened on the place."
"Mrs. Greenleaf was large and loose. The yard around her house looked like a dump and her five girls were always filthy; even the youngest dipped snuff."
"Whenever she thought of how the Greenleaf boys had advanced in the world, she had only to think of Mrs. Greenleaf sprawled obscenely on the ground, and say to herself, 'Well, no matter how far they GO, they CAME from that.'"
"They were twins and you never knew when you spoke to them whether you were speaking to O.T. or E.T., and they never had the politeness to enlighten you."
"Nice girls didn't like Scofield but Wesley didn't like nice girls."
"He talked about Paris and Rome, but he never went even to Atlanta."
"'I wouldn't milk a cow to save your soul from hell.' 'I know you wouldn't,' she said in a brittle voice."
"'Look at Mamma's iron hand!' Scofield would yell and grab her arm and hold it up so that her delicate blue-veined little hand would dangle from her wrist like a broken lily."
"'This gentleman is a sport.' 'If those boys don't come for him, he's going to be a dead sport,' she said. 'I'm just warning you.'"
"All the windows were down and she wondered if the government could have air-conditioned the thing."
"'....but all boys ain't alike.' 'No, indeed!' she had said. 'I thank God for that.' 'I thank Gawd for ever-thang,' Mr. Greenleaf had drawled. You might as well, she had thought in the fierce silence that followed; you've never done anything for yourself."
"....pointing first to the left and then to the right as if he were naming the position of two planets."
"but he stopped abruptly as she gave a kind of hoarse wheeze like an old horse lashed unexpectedly."
"Half the night she heard a sound as if some large stone were grinding a hole on the outside wall of her brain."
"This is the last night that I am going to put up with this, she said, and watched until the iron shadow moved away in the darkness."
"so that she seemed, when Mr. Greenleaf reached her, to be bent over whispering some last discovery into the animal's ear."
"She had been aware that whatever it was had been eating as long as she had had the place and had eaten everything from the beginning of the fence line up to her house and now was eating the house and calmly with the same steady rhythm would continue through the house, eating her and the boys, and then on, eating everything but the Greenleafs, on and on, eating everything until nothing was left but the Greenleafs on a little island all their own in the middle of what had been her place."
"'Hit looks to me like one or both of them boys would not make their maw ride out in the middle of the night thisaway. If hit was my boys, they would of got thet bull up theirself.'"
"...she leaned out the kitchen door, a small woman with pale near-sighted eyes and gray hair that rose on top like the crest of some disturbed bird."
"...she said in the restrained screech that had become habitual with her."
"They were as different, she said, as night and day. The only thing they did have in common was that neither of them cared what happened on the place."
"Mrs. Greenleaf was large and loose. The yard around her house looked like a dump and her five girls were always filthy; even the youngest dipped snuff."
"Whenever she thought of how the Greenleaf boys had advanced in the world, she had only to think of Mrs. Greenleaf sprawled obscenely on the ground, and say to herself, 'Well, no matter how far they GO, they CAME from that.'"
"They were twins and you never knew when you spoke to them whether you were speaking to O.T. or E.T., and they never had the politeness to enlighten you."
"Nice girls didn't like Scofield but Wesley didn't like nice girls."
"He talked about Paris and Rome, but he never went even to Atlanta."
"'I wouldn't milk a cow to save your soul from hell.' 'I know you wouldn't,' she said in a brittle voice."
"'Look at Mamma's iron hand!' Scofield would yell and grab her arm and hold it up so that her delicate blue-veined little hand would dangle from her wrist like a broken lily."
"'This gentleman is a sport.' 'If those boys don't come for him, he's going to be a dead sport,' she said. 'I'm just warning you.'"
"All the windows were down and she wondered if the government could have air-conditioned the thing."
"'....but all boys ain't alike.' 'No, indeed!' she had said. 'I thank God for that.' 'I thank Gawd for ever-thang,' Mr. Greenleaf had drawled. You might as well, she had thought in the fierce silence that followed; you've never done anything for yourself."
"....pointing first to the left and then to the right as if he were naming the position of two planets."
"but he stopped abruptly as she gave a kind of hoarse wheeze like an old horse lashed unexpectedly."
"Half the night she heard a sound as if some large stone were grinding a hole on the outside wall of her brain."
"This is the last night that I am going to put up with this, she said, and watched until the iron shadow moved away in the darkness."
"so that she seemed, when Mr. Greenleaf reached her, to be bent over whispering some last discovery into the animal's ear."
February 18, 2025
Number 21 out of complete short stories. Obviously another tragedy. I couldn’t figure out what Mr. Greenleaf whispered to the bull; whether he was truly happy to see her dead, but I believe I am correct. It must be one of the most difficult things in the world for Mrs. May to do: be a lonely woman who takes over a barren farm yet comes up with the fortitude to perservere and create something out of nothing, especially with sons who don’t respect her or wish to help on the family farm.
Flannery truly makes you feel for this woman, and in other stories, where after losing their husband, she is all alone in the world without good children. Was this story inspring? No. A highly disfunctional family with more problems than I had growing up, and we had our shares of fighting, but most of the time, we came together when needed (at least half of the time). I wasn’t the best son, and maybe this would be a good thing to show to younger children as to not put their parents’, especially their mothers, into situations of too much stress.
It is disheartening to read this story, but Flannery has such a wonderful way of telling these tragedies. I decided to devote myself to reading all of her works, as I am learning about different writers and their styles.
Dostoyevsky’s “The Idiot” struck me as one of the more moving choices. In that a man, while intelligent intellectually, he is braindead in terms of making life choices that would help him out in the long run. I hope to relish in more of Flannery’s works, as tragedy seems to be my interest.
Flannery truly makes you feel for this woman, and in other stories, where after losing their husband, she is all alone in the world without good children. Was this story inspring? No. A highly disfunctional family with more problems than I had growing up, and we had our shares of fighting, but most of the time, we came together when needed (at least half of the time). I wasn’t the best son, and maybe this would be a good thing to show to younger children as to not put their parents’, especially their mothers, into situations of too much stress.
It is disheartening to read this story, but Flannery has such a wonderful way of telling these tragedies. I decided to devote myself to reading all of her works, as I am learning about different writers and their styles.
Dostoyevsky’s “The Idiot” struck me as one of the more moving choices. In that a man, while intelligent intellectually, he is braindead in terms of making life choices that would help him out in the long run. I hope to relish in more of Flannery’s works, as tragedy seems to be my interest.
July 26, 2021
A humorous story from Flannery O'Connor? Perhaps a better description would be " 'Greenleaf' contains more humorous elements than in any of her works." A Mrs. May hears, then sees, a bull right outside her bedroom window, munching away at greenery. She commands, Biblically, "Get away from here, Sir". O'Connor writes, "...she had been having shiftless people's hogs root up her oats, their mules wallow on her lawn, their scrub bulls breed her cows." Those are strange choices of words by the author, as if Mrs. May has wanted a fight with neighbors, has been "having" these things happen. And since so much of this author's output deals with religious issues, has Noah's Arc appeared with the singular intention of irritating Mrs. May, she the very center of the universe? She has two sons (natch, back to Noah) , one "had had rheumatic fever...this was what caused him to be an intellectual." (Funny!) The other "had never had a day's sickness in his life, he was an insurance salesman." (Funnier!) And the denouement of the battle between Mrs. May and the bull? (Funniest single event in all of O'Connor's work, imo.) But it happens so quickly a reader might think, "What...wait..." and reread the last page or so. This is my favorite O'Connor story, so far. But I can't give this five stars, as O'Connor stretches the story out a bit too long.
December 23, 2022
This is only my second Flannery short story and I cannot get it out of my head ..
This short story is so deep… and there are so many layers I know I haven’t even wrapped my head around. It was beautiful and tragical .. Mrs. Greenleaf is such a beautiful picture of a life abandoned to God.. her family bearing such fruit .. and Mrs. May quite the opposite but she can do no wrong and she deserves the world.. her attitude was so gutting.. I know that place of false superiority and unbelief.
The ending … just wow. I took the ending to be that Christ (the bull) stabbed her in the heart and she rejected Him… she is bent over the bull and it appears she is whispering to the bull (she has to have the last word …and doesn’t Christ in a sense allow us to in rejecting Him.. not that we actually have the power to choose Him or reject Him.. but that when we do not believe we are shouting through our fallen state to our very own demise) not certain I explained all that is running through my head clearly but I’m working this out as I type.
This story will stay with me .. for forever.
This short story is so deep… and there are so many layers I know I haven’t even wrapped my head around. It was beautiful and tragical .. Mrs. Greenleaf is such a beautiful picture of a life abandoned to God.. her family bearing such fruit .. and Mrs. May quite the opposite but she can do no wrong and she deserves the world.. her attitude was so gutting.. I know that place of false superiority and unbelief.
The ending … just wow. I took the ending to be that Christ (the bull) stabbed her in the heart and she rejected Him… she is bent over the bull and it appears she is whispering to the bull (she has to have the last word …and doesn’t Christ in a sense allow us to in rejecting Him.. not that we actually have the power to choose Him or reject Him.. but that when we do not believe we are shouting through our fallen state to our very own demise) not certain I explained all that is running through my head clearly but I’m working this out as I type.
This story will stay with me .. for forever.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 14, 2026
“Greenleaf” centers on Mrs. May, a widowed farm owner who prides herself on her hard work, moral superiority, and social standing. She constantly compares her own sons, whom she sees as ungrateful and unsuccessful, to the sons of her hired hand, Mr. Greenleaf, whose boys have risen socially through military service and marriage.
Mrs. May is particularly disturbed by a stray bull that repeatedly wanders onto her property, symbolizing both disruption and a force beyond her control. Her resentment builds as she clings to class pride and self-righteous judgment.
In the shocking climax, the bull fatally gores Mrs. May in a moment charged with religious imagery. As in much of O’Connor’s work, the violent ending suggests an encounter with grace that comes through judgment, exposing the spiritual emptiness beneath Mrs. May’s outward respectability.
Mrs. May is particularly disturbed by a stray bull that repeatedly wanders onto her property, symbolizing both disruption and a force beyond her control. Her resentment builds as she clings to class pride and self-righteous judgment.
In the shocking climax, the bull fatally gores Mrs. May in a moment charged with religious imagery. As in much of O’Connor’s work, the violent ending suggests an encounter with grace that comes through judgment, exposing the spiritual emptiness beneath Mrs. May’s outward respectability.
April 3, 2026
Maybe the setting doesn’t lend itself well to the modern imagination, so it might be hard to hook passers by in such a story of Southern Romanticism, mysticism, and tragedy, but this is truly one of the best written short stories I’ve ever read. The pacing, tone, setting, and wonderful characters are far better than “Wise Blood,” though the latter is more explicitly modernist without that country charm, so it’s an apples and oranges comparison. There are so many moods in so few pages, so many allegories, social critiques rendered through personalities, and a brutal sort of justice. The humor, in particular, was brilliant, and the contrasts in expectations vs lived experience were profoundly human (the brothers, especially, in their slow degradation). Would recommend but not for all.
May 23, 2023
The final story for the Faith and Fiction class and one of the most overt. Mrs. May is the main character, and like many of Flannery's characters, she is a widow with problematic sons. The "Greenleaf" of the title is her hired hand/tenant on the family farm. I have now read "Revelation," "Parker's Back," "Good Country People," "A Good Man is Hard to Find," "The River," "Everything That Rises Must Converge," "The Enduring Chill," and "Greenleaf." "The River" is the story that has stayed with me, but all are good, although tough, to read.
January 9, 2025
O’Connor is a great author. Her use of imagery and descriptive writing is incredible. It feels like you are actually there watching things unfold. The inner dialogue that Ms. May has extensive. She speculates often about what others are thinking and what their motivations are. Of course all the while showing her pride that she knows what’s best and that her way of thinking is superior to others. Even her religion is no match for her superiority. She is known by her family to be harsh and critical. Her pride ultimately leads to her downfall and death.
August 18, 2024
Summary: Mrs. May, a farm-owner with two adult sons who both live at home, employs Mr. Greenleaf. Both Mr. and Mrs. Greenleaf are Christians, but Mrs. May’s sense of morality comes from her success. One day, a bull gets out on Mrs. May’s property, and she asks Mr. Greenleaf to shoot it. The end of this story is both surprising and thought-provoking.
July 1, 2024
i actually don't remember much, i have to reread it
September 5, 2024
Wow. Vaya final con el toro!!
July 6, 2025
This is actually my worst nightmare, and I’m not talking about the bull
October 21, 2025
fantastic short stories
victim --> death
victim --> death
January 4, 2026
"And she had the look of a person whose sight has been suddenly restored but who finds the light unbearable."
Might be the most powerful sentence in American literature
Might be the most powerful sentence in American literature
March 29, 2024
these “boy mama” influencers are getting out of hand
November 6, 2023
Quite a twist. Loses a star for N word.
Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews