The Lame Shall Enter First

In Flannery O'Connor’s “The Lame Shall Enter First” the theme of redemption and good v. evil to show how a doctor can loose his grip on reality and loose his only son. After the loss of Sheppard’s wife he becomes obsessed with his job instead of dealing with his grief. Being a doctor he felt the need to help others. He became obsessed with helping this troubled teenage boy. At the same time Sheppard’s son, Norton was completely neglected and actually treated very poorly be his father. Sheppard felt that his son lived too nice of a life and he was spoiled. Although Sheppard thinks he is helping this boy he forgets how that he is loosing his son.
The teenage boy named Johnson tries to teach religion to Norton and this upsets Sheppard. Norton misses his mother and religion gives him the opportunity to find some closeness with his mother’s spirit. Sheppard will not allow his son to be influenced by religion and will not believe in hell because that is where Johnson says he belongs due to his actions. After having the telescope Norton feels that closeness with his mother but his father never notices it because he feels that’s “What was wasted on Norton would cause Johnson to flourish” (380). The idea that Sheppard is doing good by helping Johnson is false because Johnson is not a good kid an he continually takes part in illegal activity. Treating Johnson like a poor disadvantaged boy didn’t help him he needed tough love. Had Sheppard only put his energy into his own son he might not have killed himself. We ask doctors to help the sick and needy but family must always come first.