"The Enduring Chill" is a short story

Short story

A short story is a work of fiction that is usually written in prose, often in narrative format. This format tends to be more pointed than longer works of fiction, such as novellas and novels. Short story definitions based on length differ somewhat, even among professional writers, in part because...

 by Flannery O'Connor

Flannery O'Connor

Mary Flannery O'Connor was an American novelist, short-story writer and essayist. An important voice in American literature, O'Connor wrote two novels and 32 short stories, as well as a number of reviews and commentaries...

. It was written in 1958 and published in 1965 in her short story collection Everything That Rises Must Converge

Everything That Rises Must Converge

Everything That Rises Must Converge is a collection of short stories written by Flannery O'Connor during her final illness. The title of the collection and of the short story of the same name is taken from a passage from the work of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. The collection was published...

. After suffering for many years, O'Connor died of lupus at the age of 39. A devout Roman Catholic, O'Connor often used religious themes in her work.

Plot summary

The story involves Asbury, a writer from New York who returns home to his mother's farm in the South after being diagnosed with a serious illness. He is out of money, unsuccessful and believes he is dying. His mother finds a local doctor who draws some of Asbury's blood to examine. In bed Asbury thinks about various experiences, including one the prior year when he interacted with the African-American farm hands and, in a show of rebellion against his mother, smoked with them in the dairy barn. However, the hands refused to drink some of the milk as Asbury did. Asbury requests that his mother bring a priest to him against her wishes. She eventually complies but the priest is elderly, hard of hearing, and not the intellectual that Asbury hoped for. Asbury then requests to see the African-American farm hands and gives them cigarettes. The farm hands lie to him and tell him he looks well. Asbury finds this interaction disappointing. Later, Asbury is informed that he has undulant fever, probably from drinking raw milk

Raw milk

Raw milk is milk that has not been pasteurized or homogenized.-History:Humans consumed raw milk exclusively prior to the industrial revolution and the invention of the pasteurization process in 1864. During the industrial revolution large populations congregated into urban areas detached from the...

. The illness will not kill him but will continually recur and cause him pain. Asbury is disappointed that he will not die a tragic death.