Reading group: sin and symbolism in Flannery O'Connor's Wise Blood

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/dec/12/reading-group-flannery-o-connor-wise-blood

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When Signet published the first paperback edition of Wise Blood, they advertised it as "A Searching Novel of Sin and Redemption" – making it an ideal choice for our Reading group about faith.

Yet, if we are to believe Flannery O'Connor, during the book's early years there seems to have been some doubt as to whether sin and redemption were really the book's subjects. In a letter written in 1954 (to Ben Griffith, as quoted in a highly recommended lecture from Professor Amy Hungerford at Open Yale) the author wrote:

<blockquote>"… it is entirely redemption-centred in thought. Not too many people are willing to see this, and perhaps it is hard to see, because Hazel Motes is such an admirable nihilist. His nihilism leads him back to the fact of his redemption, however, which is what he would have liked so much to get away from."</blockquote>

Decades on, with all the mountains of articles and books written about O'Connor's Catholicism, it's hard to imagine anyone failing to see what lies at the heart of the book. ("Wise blood redemption O'Connor" just brought me a cool 166,000 hits on Google, for instance.) In fact, I find it hard to imagine that there were ever problems of interpretation. Yes, there's more to the book. Yes, Motes is an admirable (and very funny) nihilist. But still. You can't really miss it, can you?

In fact, while we're on the subject of seeing, why not discuss one of the book's biggest and most obvious themes? Our admirable nihilist's very name plays into it. Motes, of course, calls to mind Matthew 7.3:

<blockquote>"And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye."</blockquote>

And then, Hazel is often shortened to "Haze" – the ideal name for a man who has so much trouble seeing what is in front of his face, who finds it even harder to see the wider truth, and who looks at the Bible through distorting lenses:

<blockquote>"The Bible was the only book he read. He didn't read it often but when he did he wore his mother's glasses. They tired his eyes so that after a short time he was always obliged to stop."</blockquote>

Hazel's eyes, it's safe to say, are a big part of this book. It's not just what they see and don't see, but where they are focused. His young seductress, Sabbath Lily (another heck of a name), tells her father: "I like his eyes. They don't look like they see what he's looking at, but they keep on looking." He's so intent on something outside this world that he barely notices most of what's going on around him (especially when it's poor old Sabbath – or the even more unfortunate Enoch Emery). And that something, we know by the end, is redemption.

Motes might want to establish a church where "the deaf don't hear, the blind don't see, the lame don't walk, the dumb don't talk, and the dead stay that way" – but that isn't how it turns out. When he burns out his own eyes with lye, he sees more clearly than ever. He at last knows what he wants – and what he wants is to do penance and "go on" to the Jesus he's spent so much time denying. And so, with hindsight, everything we've read about his eyes (and all the other eyes mentioned in the book) comes to be about redemption.

There's plenty more such symbolism. There's even, at one point, a bright cloud with a beard that looks like God and floats away from Motes as he takes a path away from his eventual redemption. Which isn't quite as absurd as it sounds. In the letter I've already quoted, O'Connor went on to say:

<blockquote>"When you start describing the significance of a symbol like the tunnel, which recurs in the book, you immediately begin to limit it, and a symbol should go on deepening. Everything should have a wider significance …"</blockquote>

By setting the images down here, I've probably realised her fears – and limited and belittled them. Pulled out of its setting and context, this stuff about redemption seems as subtle as Hazel Motes's disposal of his rival prophet by repeatedly running him over in his crazy old car. But I didn't object to much of this material when it was wrapped up in O'Connor's beguiling rhythmical prose. At least, not as a literary device. Philosophically, I didn't much like it.

Commenting on this month's introductory article, TomConoboy said:

<blockquote>"I have to say, this piece of reactionary religious moralising seems a most unusual choice for the Guardian. I suppose it's a bit better than her other novel, The Violent Bear It Away, in which Tarwater finds redemption by being buggered by the Devil, but poor old Haze's fate in Wise Blood is only marginally better. And as for Enoch Emery, he is an even bigger anti-Nietzschean fall-guy than Judge Holden in McCarthy's Blood Meridian."</blockquote>

TomConoboy has a point. Anything should be up for discussion here, and challenging our boundaries is healthy and good. But I have to admit that I did find the Catholicism discomforting. By the end, when he has apparently found enlightenment, Hazel seemed to me more lost than ever. Torturing yourself with barbed wire, sticking gravel and glass in your shoes and wandering off to die in a ditch are not the acts of a man heading in the right direction.

In saying as much, I'm once again in direct opposition to the author. In her 1962 note to the second edition of the novel, O'Connor wrote:

<blockquote>"That belief in Christ is to some a matter of life and death has been a stumbling block for readers who would prefer to think it a matter of no great consequence. For them, Hazel Motes's integrity lies in his trying with such vigour to get rid of the ragged figure who moves from tree to tree in the back of his mind. For the author, Hazel's integrity lies in his not being able to do so."</blockquote>

"Who would prefer to think it a matter of no great consequence". It stings! Lacerated by Flannery O'Connor! At last I begin to understand something of Hazel Motes's agony ... and at last, I get to the part of the book that is just as likely to offer it eternal life as Jesus Christ: the author's barbed-wire wit. Because, for all that this book is centred around redemption, the thing that most mattered to me was that it is so funny – and so beautifully written. In spending so long talking about this leaden symbolism and deep dark teatime of the soul, I feel that I've mischaracterised the book. I've missed the chance to talk about wonderful lighter moments. Such as this:

<blockquote>"It began to drizzle rain and he turned on the windshield wipers; they made a great clatter like two idiots clapping in church."</blockquote>

And this:

<blockquote>"She was ugly. Her hair was so thin it looked like ham gravy trickling down her skull." </blockquote>

And this:

<blockquote>"Faith is what someone knows to be true, whether they believe it or not."</blockquote>

But then, O'Connor has me once again. "It is a comic novel," she writes in that preface, "and as such, very serious, for all comic novels must be about matters of life and death" – and for her that means "belief in Christ". I hardly dare argue any more. Do you?