Wise Blood
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First edition
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| Author | Flannery O'Connor |
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| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Southern Gothic novel |
| Publisher | Harcourt, Brace & Company |
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Publication date
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May 15, 1952 |
| Media type | Print (hardback & paperback) |
| Pages | 238 |
| OCLC | 256887668 |
Wise Blood is the first novel by American author Flannery O'Connor, published in 1952. The novel was assembled from disparate stories first published in Mademoiselle, Sewanee Review and Partisan Review. The first chapter is an expanded version of her Master's thesis, "The Train" and other chapters are reworked versions of "The Peeler," "The Heart of the Park" and "Enoch and the Gorilla". The novel concerns a returning World War II veteran who, haunted by a lifelong crisis of faith, resolves to form an anti-religious ministry in an eccentric Southern town.
The novel received little critical attention when it first appeared but has since come to be appreciated as a somewhat unique work of "low comedy and high seriousness" with disturbing religious themes. It was placed 62nd in The Guardian's list of 100 greatest novels.
Recently discharged from service in World War II and surviving on a government pension for unspecified war wounds, Hazel Motes returns to his family home in Tennessee to find it abandoned. Leaving behind a note claiming a chifforobe as his private property, Motes boards a train for Taulkinham. The grandson of a traveling preacher, Motes grew up struggling with doubts regarding salvation and original sin; following his experiences at war, Motes has become an avowed atheist, and intends to spread a gospel of antireligion. Despite his aversion to all trappings of Christianity, he constantly contemplates theological issues and finds himself compelled to purchase a suit and hat that cause others to mistake him for a minister.
In Taulkinham, Motes initially finds an address in a bathroom stall and seeks out Leora Watts, a prostitute - he walks into her house, sits on her bed, and places his hand on her shoe without speaking to her first. He befriends Enoch Emery, a profane, manic, eighteen-year-old zookeeper forced to come to the city after his abusive father kicked him out of their house. Emery introduces Hazel to the concept of "wise blood," an idea that he has innate, worldly knowledge of what direction to take in life, and requires no spiritual or emotional guidance. Together, Emery and Motes witness a blind preacher and his teenage daughter crash a street vendor's potato peeler demonstration to advertise for their ministry. The preacher introduces himself as Asa Hawks and his daughter as Sabbath Lily Hawks; Motes finds himself drawn to the pair, which Hawks attributes to a repressed desire for religious salvation. Angry, Motes begins shouting blasphemies to the crowd and declares that he will found his own, anti-God street preaching ministry. Motes' declarations are lost on everyone except for Emery, who becomes infatuated with the idea.
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