The use of signs and symbols is a staple rhetoric device in
literature. It is mostly employed in poetry, of course, as metaphor (and
ultimately, symbolism) is the heart and soul of the poetic. However, in the
wake of the birth of linguistics, the study of signs assumed a more
recognizable and established structure through such theories founded by Ferdinand
Saussure and Claude Lévi-Strauss. Semiotics,
as the study of signs and their interpretation is formally called, eventually
found its way in the context of prose literature as a critical approach to
interpreting text.
Perhaps no
other literature is replete with symbolism than those whose aim is not just to
describe the activities of reality but, more importantly, to discover the
meaning behind its operations, its conditions, and its ultimate destiny. Many
writers and poets who have identified themselves with the metaphysical order of
literature—such as T. S. Eliot, Karol Wojtyla, C. S. Lewis—employ signs as their
primary means to reach or “point” toward that which cannot be perceived or explained
through physical means. Their seminal literary works all pivot around this
“mystery” that manifests itself in the life of man as he encounters reality. It
is for this reason that I believe semiotics is the most appropriate critical
theory to approach the text of Flannery O’Connor.
Flannery
O’Connor was an American Southern writer born in Savannah , Georgia
Perhaps the
most important detail of Flannery O’Connor’s life that is abundantly and
unabashedly manifested in her literary corpus is that she was a Catholic—and
one who took her faith very seriously. She herself said in letters to friends
and readers and fellow writers that the center of her fiction, of her entire
body of literary work, is the Risen Christ, Christ in the Flesh, Christ
Incarnate. To arrive at this reality, at this “signified,” she employs the
classic repertoire of signs, rhetorical devices, humor, and symbolism made
available to her by the conditions of her time and society but—true to the gothic
edge of her fiction—twists them into such strange and profoundly disturbing
ways that many critics have juxtaposed her works with Kafkanian and dystopic
literature.
But she has
proven herself distinct from these two genres of fiction as she stays faithful
to the figure toward which all the elements of her fiction ultimately
point—that is, Christ’s flesh in the world. Therefore, as it is representative
of both her Southern Gothic inclinations and her deep and strong belief of the Christ
Enfleshed, I have chosen her novel Wise
Blood as the subject of this critical analysis.
Signs and Symbols in
Wise Blood
The Eyes
The one sign immediately recognizable as one progresses
through the book and becomes evident as its central trope is sight, the eyes, or the act of looking.
The name of the main character, Hazel
Motes, a play on the words haze and
mote, is itself a reference to the
centrality of this trope. Haze is
defined as “dust, smoke, or mist that has filled the air so one cannot see” (Merriam-Webster). Conversely, mote means “a very small piece of dust,
dirt, etc.” (Merriam-Webster). In
retrospect to the Catholic truths toward which the entirety of the novel
gravitates, Matthew 7:5 (KJV) states, “Thou hypocrite, first cast the beam out
of thine own eye; and then thou shalt see clearly to cast out the mote out of they brother’s eye.” This
clearly suggests a problem with Hazel Motes’s sight.
Furthermore,
Lilly Sabbath Hawks also says in the novel, “I like his eyes. They don’t look
like they see what he’s looking at, but they keep on looking.” This raises the
question of what Hazel Motes is trying to see and what is blocking him from
seeing it. Considering the Christian theme of the novel, perhaps it can be
proposed that what Hazel’s eyes are trying to see is Christ Himself and the
“mote” or the “haze” that blurs this figure of Christ is Hazel Motes himself.
The novel,
in the first few pages, states this very striking irony: “The way to avoid
Jesus is to avoid sin.” Perhaps this reflects O’Connor’s perspective on the
Christian faith, that—contrary to the popular belief that it is merely set of
rituals and rules—it is first and foremost, a religion of redemption and love.
Christ Himself awakens and intensifies the desires of men; and the desires of
men, in turn, lead them to Christ. This is perhaps why Hazel Motes has decided
to rid himself of desires (sexual or otherwise) because he does not want to see
Christ. This denial of what makes him human (desire, affection, sympathy) is
the haze that prevents him from
seeing what his heart, despite himself, constantly looks for.
The Fragmentation of the Body
The figure of a plump female body repeatedly appears
throughout the novel. O’Connor narrates them not as a whole but as individual parts: “He [Motes] went up to the front
porch and…found himself looking directly at a large white knee.” In another
part of the novel, O’Connor writes about “a hand landing on Haze’s shoulder.”
Still, in another part of the novel, O’Connor describes a “mouth that twists
into a smile.” What is O’Connor’s purpose for emphasizing these individual body
parts as separate from its whole figure? Not only does she dismembers these
parts, she also distorts them, adding grotesque elements to make it seem not
only “strange” (for want of a better term) but also ugly.
I believe
it is important to always look back to the point around which O’Connor
constructed all the elements of this novel to be able to propose an
interpretation that does justice to her purpose and her belief as a writer. I
have mentioned that the Incarnate Christ lies at the center of all her fiction,
perhaps none more manifest than in Wise
Blood. I believe the woman’s body in this novel signifies, if my boldness
might be forgiven, the Body of Christ—the Church.
As a whole, it represents and defines the highest form of beauty on earth. It
is pristine, pure, and joyful.
But what distorts this wholeness
and the beauty that is created from it is the fragmentation of the individual body parts. A hand alone separate
from the rest of the body is unfamiliar and out of place. We do not recognize
it at all. It is its connection to the rest of the parts of the body that makes
it a hand. The same thing can be said about the church, which—if we are
faithful to O’Connor’s Christian point of view—is the body made up of the individual human persons who share in the love
and redemption afforded by the life and passion of Christ. When a person is
separated from this wholeness, this body, he becomes estranged—not only to the
figure from which he has been cut off but, more importantly, from himself.
Because, as I have pointed out before with the analogy of the hand, it is his
relationship to the whole that makes him who he is. Alone, he is a distortion, a strange and ugly thing to
behold.
Wise Blood
As far as the title is concerned, it is good to ask where
and how it bears weight on the novel. Who has wise blood? The novel itself says
the wise blood belongs to Enoch Emory, who—in the latter part of the
novel—steals a mummy, kills a man with an umbrella, and scares people out a
park dressed in a gorilla suit. While not ignoring the comical foil this lends
to the deep religious sentiment of the novel, it is equally important to pay
attention to Enoch’s wise blood and what this and his character signify.
Enoch is
still a child. Though the streets and being abandoned (and beaten) by his
father has left him profane and rude, he retains a childlike innocence for
things that his “wise blood” dictates as fascinating. Perhaps wise blood here
signifies self-dependence or man’s self-made notions about who he is, what he
is for, and how he should relate to the things he encounters. Enoch’s wise
blood has convinced him to follow Haze around, to steal a mummified dwarf as
the new Christ, and to stab a man, and dress like an animal.
If I were
to interpret Enoch’s fate in the novel in the light of O’Connor’s theme, I
would say that relying solely on ourselves, or self-dependence, takes away our
freedom and our reason to judge our reality properly. It perverts the wonder
that arises in us when we see things that are beautiful, and it (ultimately)
makes us like animals, slave to our instincts and incapacitated from
discovering meaning.
Conclusion
Wise Blood is
O’Connor’s way of saying that Christianity isn’t a manual of do’s and don’ts or
rights and wrongs. When it is reduced to mere moralism and a speculation of
abstract theories that hold no relevance to how a person lives, it becomes a
burden and alienates the human person from his own humanity. O’Connor, through
the consciousness of Haze Motes, proposes to us the inevitability, the
inexorableness, and the concreteness of Christ. No matter what Haze (or the
other characters, for that matter) does to shield himself from this truth—going
as far as physically blinding himself—he finds that he cannot escape from it.
This is the integrity that O’Connor
herself mentions in her preface to the novel’s second edition: “For them [the
readers], Hazel Motes’s integrity lies in his trying with such vigor to get rid
of the ragged figure who moves from tree to tree in the back of his mind. For
the author, Haze’s integrity lies in his not being able to.”
O’Connor
provides her readers a set of eyes with which to look for the “ragged figure”
that we ourselves—as humans living every day, encountering difficulties and
joys—feel, know, is reverberating
within us, urging us to examine ourselves in the light of our relationship with
reality. Christ is incarnate in the things that we encounter every day, if only
we are attentive, if only we open our eyes. Perhaps it seems far-fetched, but
to me, Hazel Motes’s exemplifies the heart of man. We long to patch the hole,
fill the emptiness, or deny the existence of this “lack,” this restlessness
that follows us everywhere and persists even after we have tried everything to
tame it. And it is this inner turmoil, this need
to question and account for our existence, that makes us human, that leads us
ultimately—if we but stay faithful to reality—to Christ, whose flesh lives and
beats concretely in the world.
