Wise Blood by Flannery O'Connor
**Overview of "Wise Blood" by Flannery O'Connor**
"Wis Blood," published in 1952, is the debut novel of Southern Gothic author Flannery O'Connor. The story follows Hazel Motes, a World War II veteran who returns to his hometown only to find it deserted and grapples with profound existential questions about faith and sin. Rejecting the religious beliefs instilled in him by his grandfather, a preacher, Hazel attempts to establish his own belief system, which he calls "the Church Without Christ." His journey is marked by encounters with characters like Enoch Emery, who seeks connection and meaning, and Asa Hawks, a blind preacher whose authenticity comes into question.
As Hazel navigates his tumultuous relationships and his own inner demons, he becomes increasingly obsessed with proving the non-existence of sin and ultimately resorts to drastic measures, including violence and self-mutilation. The novel explores themes of faith, redemption, and the human condition, often highlighting the struggles between belief and disbelief. O'Connor's distinctive Southern Gothic style imbues the narrative with rich symbolism and dark humor, making "Wise Blood" a thought-provoking examination of the complexities of spirituality and identity.
Wise Blood by Flannery O'Connor
First published: 1952
Type of work: Novel
Type of plot: Psychological realism
Time of plot: Early twentieth century
Locale: Taulkinham, a city in the American South
Principal Characters
Hazel Motes , a preacher despite himselfEnoch Emery , Hazel’s discipleAsa Hawks , charlatan preacher, rival to HazelSabbath Lily , Hawks’s daughterHoover Shoats , Hazel Motes’s rivalMrs. Flood , Hazel’s landlady
The Story
When Hazel Motes is released from the army, he finds his old home place deserted. Eastrod is the home of his grandfather, a backwoods preacher who assured Hazel that Jesus is hungry for his soul. Hazel packs up his mother’s Bible and reading glasses and catches the train for Taulkinham. He rides uneasily in his $11.98 suit, startling one middle-class lady by suddenly telling her, “If you’ve been redeemed . . . I wouldn’t want to be.”
In the army, Hazel decides that his grandfather’s preaching was false, that sin does not exist. In Taulkinham, Hazel intends to prove this to himself, but even the cabdriver who takes him to his first room identifies him as a preacher.
On his second night in the city, Hazel meets Enoch Emery as they watch a sidewalk potato-peeler salesman. Enoch comes to Taulkinham from the country and finds a job working for the city zoo. He is desperately lonely, and despite Hazel’s surliness, Enoch immediately attaches himself to Hazel as a potential friend. Hazel’s attention, however, is focused on a blind man whose face is scarred. The blind man’s daughter, Sabbath Lily, accompanies him, handing out religious pamphlets. Hazel and Enoch follow the pair until the blind man, Asa Hawks, insists that he can smell sin on Hazel and that he was marked by some past preacher. Hazel denies it, saying that the only thing that matters to him is that Jesus does not exist.
The next day Hazel buys a car. Even at forty dollars it is no bargain, an ancient Essex that barely runs, but it pleases Hazel. Later that day he meets Enoch Emery at the zoo so that Enoch can show Hazel something at the museum. Enoch leads Hazel to a case that contains a tiny mummified man. Enoch finds the mummy very compelling and believes that he received a sign to show it to Hazel, whose only response is to demand Hawks’s address.
That evening Hazel begins his career as a street preacher; he calls his church “the Church Without Christ” and denies the existence of sin, judgment, and redemption. Later that evening he rents a room in the rooming house where Hawks and his daughter live, planning to seduce Sabbath Lily and thus to make the blind preacher take his denial of Christ seriously. Hazel has no idea that Hawks’s blindness is fake; he believes a news clipping Hawks shows him that described Hawks’s promise to blind himself by way of dramatizing his conviction that Jesus’s death redeemed him. Hawks did not show Hazel the second clipping: “Evangelist’s Nerve Fails.” At the moment when he planned to rub lime into his eyes, Hawks believed that he saw Jesus expel the devils that drew him to this testing of God, and the sight made him flee.
The next afternoon, Sabbath Lily tricks Hazel into taking her for a ride in the country. As they lie in a field, Hazel is beginning to formulate his plan for seducing her without realizing that she already planned the same thing. When she looks into his eyes and playfully says “I see you” to Hazel, however, he suddenly bolts.
Meanwhile, Enoch is going through an elaborate cleansing ritual in preparation for his theft of the mummy from the museum. He calls it the “new jesus” and feels that Hazel needs it for his church. At the same time, Hazel is coping with unwanted help from a volunteer preacher, Onnie Jay Holy, who confides to Hazel that they can make a lot of money from his church with the right promotion. Outraged, Hazel refuses. The same night, Hazel learns that Hawks is not blind. His deception revealed, Hawks skips town, leaving Sabbath Lily behind.
When Enoch delivers the “new jesus” to Hazel, he is obliged to leave the mummy with Sabbath Lily instead. When Hazel finds her holding the mummy like an infant, he becomes furious and slams the thing against a wall, releasing its sawdust stuffing. Then he goes out to preach, only to find that Onnie (his real name is Hoover Shoats) hired a double, Solace Layfield, to preach a distorted version of Hazel’s “Church Without Christ.” Furious, Hazel lures the man into the country and kills him by running over him with the Essex. Enoch also disappears into the country, wearing a gorilla suit stolen from a movie promotion.
After he kills his rival preacher, Hazel returns to town and blinds himself in just the way Hawks failed to. The last months of Hazel’s life are marked by his increasing need to scourge himself until at last, blind and wearing barbed wire under his clothes, Hazel is dead in a ditch in a wintry rain.
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