"The Turkey" is an early short story by the American author 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 is one of the six stories included in O'Connor's 1947 master's thesis The Geranium: A Collection of Short Stories and was published in Mademoiselle

Mademoiselle (magazine)

Mademoiselle was an influential women's magazine first published in 1935 by Street and Smith and later acquired by Condé Nast Publications....

in 1948 as "The Capture." It later appeared in the 1971 collection The Complete Stories

The Complete Stories (O'Connor)

The Complete Stories is a short story collection by Flannery O'Connor. It was published in 1971 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. It comprises the stories in A Good Man Is Hard to Find and Everything That Rises Must Converge, plus several previously unavailable stories.-Contents:*"The Geranium"*"The...

and a modified version appeared in her Complete Works in 1988 as An Afternoon in the Woods

An Afternoon in the Woods

"An Afternoon in the Woods" is a short story by Flannery O'Connor. It was published posthumously in 1988 in her Collected Works. It is the final version of The Turkey and "The Capture" and was originally part of her 1947 master thesis and was going to be published in 1955 compilation, but was...

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The story involves a boy chasing and capturing an injured turkey, which is taken from him before he can bring it back to his family. The story has a Christian theme and deals with the boy's sinful motivations.