Research On Ethical Confusion In Flannery O’connor’s Wise Blood

Wise Blood(1952)is one of the representative works of Southern writer Flannery O’Connor(1925-1964).Nowadays,academic circles carry out extensive research on Wise Blood from the perspective of violence,consumerism,religion,salvation and psychoanalysis.These studies have enriched readers’ understanding of Wise Blood,but it is insufficient for further studies to the representation of southerners’ crisis of faith in the middle of the 20 th century and the consequent ethical confusion.In mid-twentieth,American Southern economy has developed rapidly.With prevailing consumption,people’s need for material have been satisfied,but accompanied by the decline of religious beliefs,their spirits of human beings have also been in crisis.It deserves more exploration of how people at that time could find a new spiritual path to return to a peaceful spiritual home in the era of declining religion.As a gifted Southern writer,O’Connor has seen the desolation of man’s hearts through the mask of urban prosperity.She despises the moral degradation of human beings,so her creation of Wise Blood is an attempt to find a new way for people at that time.The three main characters in the novel,Enoch,Sabbath and Hazel are all in different crisis of religious beliefs.By employing ethical literary criticism,this thesis re-examines the ethical themes in Wise Blood,which argues that after facing the crisis of faith,the three main characters all try to resort to ethics for solutions,which ultimately results to their ethical confusion.The body of the thesis is divided into three chapters.The first chapter analyzes how Enoch’s ethical election has resulted in his ethical confusion.As a blind follower of his primitive instinct,Enoch wants to integrate into the city,so he acts by his own original desire.His wrong ethical choice has made him fail to distinguish man from beasts,which eventually leads to his ethical confusion.The second chapter analyzes how Sabbath’s ethical election has resulted in her ethical confusion.Sabbath is an aimless unbeliever who wants to get rid of the predicament that her identity as an illegitimate daughter has brought to her.She has made the ethical choice of returning to a normal family,but at last she doesn’t return to a normal family life she wanted and she is also abandoned by her father,which has resulted in Sabbath’s ethical confusion.The third chapter analyzes how Hazel’s ethical election has resulted in his ethical confusion.After a war the protagonist Hazel has doubts about his faith of Jesus.He attempts to find his own truth by blasphemy,but he doesn’t realize that the church he founded has eventually become an instrument for a liar to collect money.After killing the actor invited by the liar,Hazel’s moral values have conflicted,resulting in his ethical confusion.In the writing of O’Connor,the three protagonists respectively represent three kinds of people in the middle of the twentieth century.They all have different ways of expressing their beliefs and they are all in a crisis of faith.However,the fact that they have resorted to ethics to get out of their predicament has encountered failure one after another,which has resulted in their ethical confusion.It is exactly the intention of the author.As a devout Catholic,O’Connor regards her own suffering as God’s Grace.Therefore,she doesn’t look coldly from the side-lines at the suffering of her characters,but leaves a new hope at the end of the novel.Although Hazel has passed away,he has returned to the embrace of God,being redeemed.Ethical literary criticism explores moral teachings in the text from the angle of ethics.As a result,the ethical confusion of the three characters in the novel revels O’Connor’s moral teachings for people at that time.For O’Connor,to believe in God again,namely to come back to the embrace of Catholicism,is a new way to realize self-salvation and to return a peaceful spiritual home.