Hazel's Alienation,Repression And Remolding

Flannery O'Connor,an American novelist and critic,is an important representative of southern American literature in the 20 th century.Wise Blood is O'Connor's first novel,which fully reflects her creative styles.The novel tells a story about the process of alienation and remolding of Hazel.The researches on Wise Blood mainly focus on themes,religion,writing styles,comparison with other fictions and so on.Seldom have scholars studied Wise Blood from the perspective of space theory.Based on Henri Lefebvre's space theory,this thesis uses close reading and qualitative study to analyze the physical,social and psychological space of Hazel in Wise Blood.Firstly,the novel unfolds around the physical space of Taulkinham,which is a horrible city from the perspective of public physical space.The harms are brought to Hazel through this passive and indifferent city.In the private physical space,Hazel's narrow rental house and the car which symbolizes his desire,reflect the helplessness of Hazel,he wants to change his life but finds nothing can be done at the bottom of the society.He can only use alienation and violence to face the surrounding environments.Secondly,Hazel's social space is also unsatisfactory.His innocent and kind characters are inconsistent with the social environment in which the whole society pays attention to interests rather than emotions.He cannot make a friend in society.Except for the indifferent strangers,the people around Hazel try to take advantage of him.The alienated physical space and the suppressed social space make Hazel unable to vent his inner dissatisfaction.He kills an innocent person.Finally,when his car is pushed down the mountain,Hazel awakens and realizes his remolding of the psychological space.He uses lime to blind his own eyes,gets rid of all the distractions of material and money and lives a life of atonement.Although his eyes are blind,he achieves the richness of the soul.This study indicates that there are multiple crises in people's physical space and social space,but they can still remold themselves in psychological space.In summary,from the perspective of Henri Lefebvre's space theory,this thesis explores the change process of Hazel in the physical space,social space and psychological space.In addition,the application of Henri Lefebvre's space theory in this thesis provides another perspective for the interpretation of the novel.