Wise Blood

Wise Blood (1952) was the first novel written by Southern author Flannery O'Connor.

Plot

Hazel Motes begins the novel coming home from army service. His grandfather was a tent revival preacher, and Hazel himself is irresistibly drawn to wearing a bright blue suit and a black hat. He is told repeatedly that he "looks like a preacher," though he despises preachers. Hazel makes his way to the big city of Taulkinham, where he obtains a "rat colored car" and founds the "Church of Truth Without Jesus Christ Crucified."

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In the United States Army, presumably in World War II, Hazel came to the conclusion that the only way to escape sin is to have no soul. He begins denying the existence of the soul at that point. In Taulkinham, he first goes to the home of a Miss Leora Watts, a casual prostitute, who tells him that "Mamma don't care if you ain't a preacher," takes his $2, and provides her services. Watts's house becomes Haze's base of operations.

Related Topics:
United States Army - World War II - Sin - Soul

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The next night, he comes across a street vendor hawking potato peelers and Enoch Emery, a sad and manic 18 year old who was forced to come to the big city after his father abandoned him. The huckster is interrupted by a blinded preacher and his young daughter. Motes is attracted to the girl, and the preacher says that he has really been attracted to him for repentence. The preacher is Asa Hawks, and the daughter is Sabbath Lily. In attempted blasphemy, Haze says, to Hawks, "My Jesus!" He turns to a crowd Hawks is attempting to reach and begins to announce his Church of Truth Without Jesus Christ Crucified."

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Enoch Emery is attracted to Hazel's new "church," and the legendary Asa Hawks (and his daughter, Sabbath Lily) takes Hazel under his wing. Ostensibly, Asa Hawks had blinded himself with lime, and his daughter is his only aid as he preaches the joys of redemption. It turns out, however, that Asa promised the public to blind himself and then did not, though he carries on as if he did. Hawks is not only sighted, but he is a raptor who is preying upon those who pray. The pure daughter, Sabbath Lily, instead of being pure, has a wild sex drive, and she uses the semblance of purity and virginity to heighten her sexual allure.

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Hazel believes that "sin is a trick on niggers," but he is obsessed with sin, guilt, cleanliness, and the figure of Jesus. Enoch explains that he, like his father, has "wise blood" that tells him secrets about things. His blood tells Enoch that a mummy in a museum is "the new Jesus," and so he steals the corpse. Enoch later violently steals and then wears a gorilla costume. Hazel, who insists that "Nobody with a good car needs to be justified," destroys this new jesus when it is given to him without explanation.

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When Hazel's car, the symbol of his faith in the material world, is destroyed, he faces his moment of grace and crisis. Having passed between the body-obsessed believer of Enoch on one side, and the entirely faithless charlatan of Hawks on the other, Hazel invests his passionate belief in suffering, binds himself with barbed wire, puts stones and glass in his shoes, and blinds himself with lime, becoming an ambiguous figure of redemption.

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