This essay examines the relationship between Flannery O'Connor's seminal novella, The Violent Bear It Away, and Jacques Derrida's deconstruction of responsibility in The Gift of Death. Principally, this text seeks to understand O'Connor's personal idea of "eternal responsibility" by demonstrating how she illustrates its meaning through the Tarwater family. Derrida, from whom passages from Acts of Religion and Literature in Secret are also taken, provides a theoretical framework that scrutinizes sacred responsibility alongside its secular counterpart. Juxtaposing these texts reveals that O'Connor's "eternal responsibility" arises from her Christian beliefs but also that the secular—as an instrument of the Devil's spin on reality—threatens a human's ability to accept his responsibility toward every other. Thus, O'Connor creates a parable that highlights the connections between irresponsibility and any conceptualization of responsibility. The Violent Bear It Away further asserts that faith itself shall never be relinquished and that the secret that Abraham carried to us remains as powerful and terrifying today as it has ever been. The confluence of these ideas forms a fascinatingly antagonistic message that runs straight through the heart of Christianity itself. Yet, the novella also promises the same trauma, shock, and unforeseen danger that Abraham keeps secret. O'Connor wants her readers to remember that God's inexhaustible grace, while a sign of His everlasting love, can be an agonizing, fearful, and violent process.