A Semiotic Insight into Flannery O'Connor's Wise Blood

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. She is at present most notably known for her short stories, although her body of work includes sixteen novels and various essays, letters, and reviews. She was associated with the Southern Gothic movement of the 1930s and ’40s as her novels and stories contain elements and sentiments of that style. She did not, however, live long to write more literature as she became afflicted with lupus and died in 1964 at the age of thirty-nine.

    

        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.

A Yellow Raincoat’s Meeting with the Father

When I first learned of the the Holy Father’s plan to visit the country—Tacloban, no less!—somewhere around August or September last year, my heart was already set in stone. I am going to see Pope Francis. No matter what it takes.

This desire isn't rooted from media-driven fascination, where I saw wonderful things about him in the news that immediately made me a fan. It is instead from a profound companionship I've developed from reading his letters, his homilies, the things he happened to say while passing at a random person on his pope mobile. This was the first time I've intimately followed a pope, maybe because I was still too young at the time of Pope John Paul II and too cynical at the time of Pope Benedict XVI. But what is so different about Pope Francis? I can't really tell you, but there is something about him that affects me deeply. A joy, a radiance, something different. And this "something" is further magnified when you get to see it, albeit from a distance, in person.

Tacloban City is a four (sometimes five)-drive away from our town. For those of us who live this far, we had to start traveling as early as 6:00 a.m. on Friday (January 16). The weather was already sulking, and we knew that when we reached Tacloban, we would be met with a storm. And so we were.

I haven't been to Tacloban for a long time, which was before Yolanda. I remember how pretty she was, a young lady compared to the sophisticated woman that is Cebu. She is comfortable in her own skin and sits primly at the table, waiting to be acknowledged. I guess nobody expected that the time for the world to finally see Tacloban would be when she was brought to her knees, broken and shredded and drowned. I felt a slight shudder as we passed by the remnants of the storm: the perpetually bent trees, the damaged bridges, the balded mountains. The roofs of Tacloban's houses are not unlike a toothless mouth of a fully grown man, not at all adorable to behold; and the cracks on the walls of the buildings are like scars scratched by a long ugly finger, a tragedy forever etched in concrete. Yet despite the visible remains of the tempest that has ravaged her, she remains unsoiled and beautiful. Her spirit is still intact and pure, personified by the warm kindness her people constantly and consistently offer to themselves and to those who surround them.  

We spent the rest of Friday afternoon listening to the orientation: where we were supposed to go, what we shouldn't bring, what we should expect, etc. We were handed our yellow rain ponchos and told to expect a downpour when he head out and walk to the airport by 4:30 a.m., Saturday. I was amazed that as early as 9.30 p.m., Friday, people were already marching to the venue. It was already raining by then, which meant that they would spend the night out in the open wet and cold. 

Pilgrims waiting as early as 9:00 p.m., Friday

By 4:00 a.m., Saturday, we were already in line, en route to the airport. The wind was already picking up, and the rain still hadn't let down. It took us perhaps an hour or so to actually get inside the venue. There was mild pushing, sulking, and complaining—but I had not heard a single one say they would rather go home. It seems were all unified in this little sacrifice. Plus, the human barricades greeting us warmly with their good-mornings helped ease the tension.

Security was tight. I had to dispose of a newly bought alcohol bottle and my beloved comb to be allowed in. I also had to leave my lipstick at one of the stores because they said lipsticks weren't allowed (what? why!!). But who was I to question security, right?

Seven a.m., the weather had gone worse. The wind was already violently pulling leaves from the trees and messing up the sound system. It took us a while to find our quadrant, and when we finally found it (right smack in front of the sound system), we settled in for the wait. 

Our view of the altar

My bladder thought it would be the perfect time to relieve itself, so I dragged myself to the makeshift restrooms, which unfortunately was on the opposite, extreme end of where we were. When I was ready to go back, I was horrified to find out that the police had closed off the way to the other side (meaning, I was not allowed to cross from one side of the venue to the other, where my quadrant was). I was stuck there in the middle crossway along with other pilgrims, who were already on edge from begging the policeman to let them cross. One of them was the head doctor from one of the field hospitals, whose presence was obviously urgent at her station on the other side. But this policeman was relentless! He told us he was just following orders. I climbed the barricade, already in tears, to desperately get a glimpse of my mother and signal to her that "I'm here! I'm here! They won't let me cross!"

I really do not wish to dwell on those mildly infuriating moments, but we finally were able to summon another police officer, who was more sympathetic of our plight and finally allowed us entry. Did the blindly obedient policeman expect us to enjoy the presence of our holy father away from our families? I knew he was just following orders, but it was a situation that demanded more sympathy and discernment than "obedience."

A few minutes before  nine, a plane whizzed past, which again triggered another round of excited screams from the crowd. When it finally landed on the runway, we were all shouting for joy and clapping and chanting, "Viva il papa, Papa Francesco!" They had already announced that the mass would be simple, owing to the even worsening weather, and they would dispense with the communion. Nobody was disappointed. We were just glad for the father to have arrived safely and, for a few special hours, he would be with us in the flesh—not just pixels on a TV screen, words on a monitor, or a picture on a T-shirt—but him! His personal presence! His voice! Everything else was immaterial: the rain, the wind, the cold, the aching cricks on our backs begging for reprieve, the hunger pangs, the shortened hours. It didn't matter. He was standing there, wearing the same yellow raincoat we had on, with the same flimsy white hoodie string that comes loose after you pulled on it one too many times. Our father is here! He is finally here!

Nanay, braving the cold

The loud euphoria gave way to silence as he started the mass. All our necks were strained to get a glimpse of him (I personally felt like I was Zacchaeus), but his voice was clear. We were already choked up in emotion when he came out, but when he finally spoke to us directly in his homily, when he asked our permission if he could address us in Spanish (to which we eagerly shouted yes!)—we knew, this was the moment we've been waiting for. This was the message that would make our sacrifices mean something. So we listened.

If you've been there or just watching on TV, you know what he said. You know how it touched you, how earnest and pained he looked when he apologized that he came a bit late and that he couldn't stay long. You heard the sadness in his voice when said he didn't know what to say to us, that he prefers to suffer with us in silence. And it was his silence that embraced us, that touched our wounds, that offered Christ's healing. It was this silence that allowed us to open ourselves to be looked at by Christ, who the father said would never let us down. 

 You saw how animated and fervently he spoke about Christ, pointing at the Crucifix and saying that this is Who we should look to when we are suffering. We have someone who is capable of being our companion, not just abstractly, but concretely, someone who shares our pain and can therefore heal it. Christ is the Lord, the father said. He is like us in every respect, except in sin. And beside Him on that holy cross is our Mother, whose hand we can hold  when nothing makes sense. We are not orphans, the father reminded us. Even though we have lost properties, families, or the sight of the better things to come, Christ is there with the Mother. We are not alone. We are loved.

The crowd in the middle of the storm

Being there, amid crying yellow raincoats, I felt a profound gladness and felt tears in my eyes. Looking at the people around me, I can say that they felt the same. If they recalled their lost loved ones, I wouldn't know, but something touched us that stirred us all deeply to our core that we couldn't help the tears. Christ was here, reaching out to us to embrace our humanity. This was what it means to be loved. To be one person among a hundred thousand more others and feel special. This was why the father came. To tell us we are special. To tell us that we matter and our suffering always counts for something. All is not lost. We have Christ and, therefore, hope.

We left Tacloban later that day with our hearts full of this something, a mysterious, overwhelming joy that where once we felt obscure, we have been found. It was truly a day to be treasured.