O’Connor wrote about the strange world she found herself living within in twentieth-century rural Georgia. Her characters were exceedingly strange, even grotesque. However, as her stories unfolded, the reader got inside these characters’ world-views. Indeed, they became relatable and empathy for their condition grows.
Wise Blood is no exception for this trend. This work is O’Connor’s first great work. She tells the story of the relationships between several characters who, to say the least, are very odd. One character pokes his own eyes out in order to blind himself. He is blinded to the presence of a widow who seeks security in serving him. Another character proclaims a “Church without Christ” – a group of people free of metaphysics. These characters all have in common a basic approach to reality: Instead of working with what’s in front of them, they all seek to impose their will upon their own existence. And that leads to their basic oddity.
Indeed, themes of alienation and estrangement are all over this book. No character seeks gratitude, virtue, or enjoyment. They are all simply seeking something that they don’t find at all. They all seem stuck in a deep rut that is governed by their personalities. Being country folk, they seem completely oblivious to social norms. Indeed, one character spends time staring through binoculars at city folk at a swimming pool. He finds the conventions of women foreign and lustfully ogles them through the bushes. Al this seems strange, odd, and alienated from how life ought to be lived.
The specter of American fundamentalism stands behind all of these stories. No one is educated in the ways of the day. Instead, they all react to what’s going on around them. Even the “Church without Christ” is essentially a counter-position to the religion that this character finds all around him. O’Connor’s characters all seem “Christ-haunted” as she describes what transpires around herself. O’Connor was a devout Roman Catholic. She saw what she could only portray as the excesses of Protestantism surrounding her.
To her, Protestantism seemed like a form of indoctrination through religious teaching. It did not perceive reality but seemed to impose itself and its order upon reality. Hence the Christ-haunting. This religious practice instead of saving people, made people grotesque and alienated.
One could only wonder what O’Connor would say about the American South in the age of Trump. Seemingly, people would seem only more estranged from their essential purpose in life. Instead of building character and virtue, people merely seek power, security, and lesser things. As such, O’Connor’s social critique in Wise Blood only seems still relevant to contemporary American culture. She offers no answers except the timeless answer of being “clear sighted” to what is going on around you.
Wise Blood: A Novel
by Flannery O’Connor
Copyright (c) 1949, 1952, 1962
in 3 by Flannery O’Connor
ISBN13 9780374530631
Page Count: 120
Genre: Fiction, American Gothic
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