O'connor Novel "wise Blood," The Hero Fall, And Redemption

Flannery O'Connor is regarded as one of the most prominent Southern writers after William Faulkner, the father of American Southern literature. Because of the family's influence and the disease, her works are pervaded with the themes of religion and death.In her opinions, one would conduct in an abnormal way in mind and behavior if he betrays the Christian beliefs, and he can only be saved and conserved when he cuts himself from the traditional morality and value by means of violence and death. As a pious catholic, Flannery O'Connor tends to view most issues from a religious perspective. She demonstrates vividly modern man's spiritual agony, oscillation, and mental conflict over religious belief by portraying freaks' spiritual life in the Southern country.Wise Blood, her first novel, is one of her masterpieces. The novel is about Hazel Motes' tragedy. He loses faith in God in the army and sets up a "Church without Christ" to compete with orthodox Christianity. However, in the process of preaching, he is exposed to sins such as greed, hypocrisy, indifference and so on. Hazel Motes himself is also driven to commit adultery, blaspheme God and even kill a fake preacher. Thus Hazel Motes is burdened with mental shacks. Finally, he blinds himselfand dies to gain so-called eternal life of the soul.Through portraying the character of Hazel Motes, the hero, Flannery O'Connor exposes greed, hypocrisy, and indifference of the Christian world in the South after the Second World War of the twentieth century, and demonstrates the spiritual world and the mental state of the "Beat Generation" in the post-war American society.This thesis attempts to analyze the image of Hazel Motes, to explore the causes of his degeneration and crime, which include the social causes, the family's influence, the wounds of war, and the personal encounters; and how he takes the road against his original religion. The thesis points out that the causes which lead to Hazel Motes' degeneration are severe rules of Christianity, the cruel war and the alienated religious society.