Wiseblood by Flannery O’Connor

Overview

Genre: Comedy Irony Hyperbole=>Grotesque Symbol Theme Allusion

Comedy “All comic novels that are any good

must be about matters of life and death” Two visions of integrity: author’s and

popular culture’s “Free will does not mean one will but

many wills conflicting in one man. “Freedom cannot be conceived of

simply.” “It is a mystery and one which a comic

novel can only be asked to deepen.”

Mystery Versus Problem

Opening into Awe, catharsis

cf. Role of Greek Theater

not something “to be solved”

Irony

“”Jesus would have him in the end.”

“…the way to avoid Jesus was to avoid sin.”

Symbols: The Automobile (recall Faustus’s ambitions)

The Preacher’s hat:grandfather and Haze’s past

“That Jesus Seeing Hat” (60) take of that hat , king of the beasts… and she sent it flying across the room into the dark. 170

Woman in Casket: sin/death (cf women in Faustus--Nan Spit/Helen)

The Essex (Death in Life, Pulpit, “escape”) “No body with a good car needs to be

justified.” 113 This is a good car….I knew when I first

saw it that it was the car for me, and since I’ve had it, I’ve had a place to be that I can always get away in.” 115

“I told you this car would get me anywhere I wanted to go” 127

Irony and truth and many wills: escape itself as symbol (false) of freedom

•I don’t have to run from anything because I don’t believe in anything.”•“Wiseblood”(irrational, intuitive)•Blindness-false and true (paradox) “He preached on the blindness of Paul…”114

Names and characterizations

Sabbath Lily Hawks (bird imagery—Haze is describe with a nose like a shrike’s)

Mary Brittle—popular philosophy/advice

“Read some books on Ethical culture.” 119

I’m adjusted okay to the modern world.” 120

Worst thing you could possibly be…think about it

“It was plain that she was so well adjusted that she didn’t have to think any more.” 60

Trip to the whore house, 147…

“You ain’t true.” 155

Truth: The Role of The Double--externalize internal conflict MODERNISM: “No truth behind all truths is what I and this church

preach! Where you come from is gone, where you thought you were going to never was there, and where you are is no good unless you can get away from it. Where is there a place for you to be? No place.

Your conscience is a trick” cf. Kant’s proof It don’t exist and …if you think it does, you

had best get it out in the open and hunt it down and kill it, because it’s no more than your face in the mirror is or your shadow behind you.” 166 cf. The True Prophet

Action as Symbol:Conversion “...Snatched the shriveled body and threw it

against the wall. The head popped and trash inside sprayed out in a little cloud of dust….”I’ve seen the only truth there is!”

“To some other city, I got a car to get there in, I got….it sounded like a little yell for help at the bottom of the canyon.” 189

What does the new jesus do for Enoch in return for his services…?

“No gorilla in existence, whether in the jungles of Africa or California, or in New York City was happier at that moment than this one, whose god had finally rewarded it.” 198

Metanoia: an outward manifestation

“You ain’t true …you believe in jesus.”

“Take off that suit” Cf gorilla suit/Enoch

as Intuition/ pushing Haze along

Essex runs over him “Jesus he’p me.”

“Does one’s integrity ever lie in what he is not able to do?

Metanoiafolks, I really mean this and so does O’Connor: Haze stops running Haze stood for a few minutes, looking over at the

scene. His face seemed to reflect the entire distance across the clearing and on beyond, the entire distance that extended from his eyes to the blank gray sky that went on, depth after depth, into space. His knees bent under him and he sat down on the edge of the embankment with his feet hanging over.

The patrolman. . . . leaned on down with his hands on his knees and said in an anxious voice, "Was you going anywheres?"

"No," Haze said (107-8)

Why such problems?

Cadmus: preserve family name

Faustus won’t repent and chooses to suffer eternal torment because he fears bodily pain

Can contemporary students take seriously the issue of Sacred Versus the Profane?

Or understand that some literature does?

LK: ch 8 His disciples asked him what this parable meant. 10He said, “The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of God has been given to you, but to others I speak in parables, so that, “ ‘though seeing, they may not see;       though hearing, they may not understand.

If you yourself would become the parable…

Irony: parallels

Followed by blinding self. (paradox, irony of symbol)

Tiresisas, Saul/Paul “To her the blind man had a look of

seeing something” 214

Apollonian rationalism: control

“She thought of her own head as a switchbox where she controlled from…” (Apollonian)

but with him , she could only imagine the outside in, the whole black world in his head and his head bigger than the world, his head big enough to include the sky, planets and whatever was or had been or would be. How would he know if he was going backwards or forwards or if he was going along with it? (Dionysian)

Recall C.S. Lewis: the problem of Will

For the wise men of old the cardinal problem had been how to conform the soul to reality, and the solution had been knowledge, self-discipline and virtue.

For magic and applied science alike the problem is how to subdue reality to the wishes of men.

Recall: “The God I serve is mine own appetite”: what of the “mind of man”: limits of human vision

Perspectives on Conversion:Irony

“I’m as good, Mr. Motes,…not believing in Jesus as a many a one that does.”

“You’re better,” he said, “If you believed in Jesus you wouldn’t be so good.”

“He had never paid her a compliment before!”

‘If there’s no bottom to your eyes, they hold more.”

“I want to go on where I’m going.” 230

Irony of conversions: Simile

She imagined it was like you were walking in a tunnel and all you could see was a pin point of light. She had to imagine the pin point of light; she couldn’t think of it all without that. [why?] She saw it as some kind of star, like the star on Christmas cards. She saw him going backwards to Bethlehem and had to laugh.”

Become the parable!

“She felt as if she were blocked at the entrance of something. She sat staring with her eyes shut, into his eyes, and felt as if she had finally got to the beginning of something she couldn’t begin, and saw him moving farther and farther into the darkness until he was a pin point of light.” 232

Comparisons: tragedy Vs comedy

Elements of Tragedy Empathy Catastrophe Marlow’s response The tale to tell Triumph of the

individual will leads to the horror, the horror”

Consumer society

Elements of Comedy Distance Harmony Mrs. Flood response The start of

something Secular defeat is

Spiritual Victory Consumer Society