Wise Blood by Flannery O’Connor delves into the expression of religion in the year 1952 through the zealot Hazel Motes who actively demands for the people of Taulkinham to listen to his speech for the Church Without Christ. Emerged in a small, plain, folk town with people of many walks of life, Hazel strives to convert the followers of Christianity into “clean beings” with ambitions other than praising their unknown God. The area of conservative christians around Haze creates an ironic state considering he does have "wise blood" that makes his character something that brings others closer to the divine, even though he interprets his wise blood in a very different way.
O’Connor presents God as an unshakeable actuality in this story, and that even humans set themselves to run away from him, God will only take that and use it to glorify his name. Taking the theme of “wise blood” can mean to be self-actualized or to grasp concepts of things that lie only in what can be seen and touched. All characters within these boundaries vastly represent the spectrum of belief of “wise blood”. …show more content…
Hazel burdens himself with an inter battle that verges from his family that he used to know but no longer associates with. Motes makes himself a statement piece constantly for example he "knew by the time he was twelve years old that he was going to be a preacher" meaning that he knew from the get go that he was to preach but not necessarily preach the word of God. (O’Connor 10). Hazel finds it evident that he portrays his beliefs more than most of the time to even complete strangers, "I AM clean," makes it obvious that he means something different by the word "clean." (87) Haze parades his thoughts but also hates the interaction of people around him so in doing so he contradicts