Wise Blood Analysis

Flannery O’Conner’s work is filled with profound Christian imagery and themes; however, her stories are not ones of rainbows, triumph, and love. They are grotesque, disturbing, jarring, and bleak. In Wise Blood Hazel Motes devolves from self-appointed priesthood, to blind decay, then death. Enoch is a man ruled by his instincts, like an animal, who devolves into an ape-like existence. These men aren’t exactly showing the fruits of the spirit, engaging in prostitution, theft, and murder, but this is all part of a carefully constructed technique. O’Conner uses Apophatic method to present her concept of Christianity and the divinity of God.

Reduction

The main symbol of Jesus, or rather the antithesis of Jesus, within Wise Blood is the mummy that

Haze, the name by which Hazel is occasionally referred to, is defined by Merriam-Webster online dictionary as, “dust, smoke, or mist that fills the air so that you cannot see clearly” or as “a state of mental confusion.” At first, Hazel is spiritually blind, refusing to follow the beckoning of Jesus, whom he saw “moving from tree to tree in the back of his mind.” However, when his car is pushed over the ledge, he begins to see his spiritual blindness for the first time, and realizes he cannot redeem himself. Instead of submitting to the victory of Jesus, he transforms his physical blindness into literal blindness, doing what the preacher Asa Hawkes did not, and taking lime to his

He internally protests against his blood before he goes into the movie theater, frightened that his blood will make him do something that he does not want to do. Seemingly against his own will, “he found himself going down a long red foyer…” into the movie theater. Enoch, instead of relying on higher reasoning, allowed animal-like instincts to take control of his life. Eventually, he dons an ape suit and starts an ape-like existence in the woods, abandoning reasoning and all human aspirations in the