| Flannery O'Connor (1925-1964) is acknowledged as one of the most outstanding American Southern novelists after WWII. In her short lifetime, she has produced two novels: Wise Blood (1952) and The Violent Bear It Away (1960) and thirty-one novellas. As a Southern and Catholic writer, O'Connor's novels and stories have strong color of region and religion. Violence, penance and death pervade her plots. Besides, O'Connor has a reputation for creating distorted characters. Her first novel Wise Blood epitomizes these unique style and characteristic. Domestic and overseas scholars mainly focus on studying the theme of the novel from the angles of feminism, existentialism and archetypal criticism etc. However, few of them have mentioned the characters'gaze frequently appearing in the novel, although gaze plays a prominent role in literary works. Without the characters'gaze, their psychological condition is difficult for readers to penetrate. Correspondingly, the author's intention and the significance of the work might be beyond our understanding. Therefore, this thesis will discuss the function and effect of gaze on the spiritual development of the protagonist Hazel Motes and explore the profound meaning of the novel in the light of the concept of gaze.The thesis falls into six parts.The introductory part provides a brief account of Flannery O'Connor, her major works and writing style, gives a plot summary of Wise Blood and presents a literature review. In the end, it points out the originality in analyzing this novel from the perspective of Lacanian gaze and the significance of the study.Chapter One makes a study of the development of seeing and introduces the concept of gaze. It firstly illustrates the importance of seeing as well as the various ways of seeing in the world. Then the relationship between sight and literature has been analyzed. At last it introduces the theory of Lacanian gaze.Chapter Two classifies the gaze in the novel into two types. The first type is the gaze of the protagonist as the subject and the second one is the gaze of the protagonist as the object. Through the analysis of the two types of gaze, Hazel's growth and spiritual experience of pursuing his subjectivity are revealed.Chapter Three mainly discusses the effect gaze has on Hazel's psychology and the process of his spiritual conversion. According to Lacan's gaze theory, gaze, on the one hand, indicates the social expectation for the subject; on the other hand, it marks the lack which the subject will endeavor to fill. But the original completeness and wholeness will never return to us. Under the influence of the grandfather and the mother in his childhood, Hazel enjoyed the false wholeness and completeness they built for him. However, the death of all the family members, the loss of his soul in the army and the degeneration of the society made the protagonist experience the feeling of lack. Hazel spared no efforts to fill the lack and return to the original state of wholeness and completeness. However, God is the false completeness that human beings create. Therefore, ultimately he could only die to embrace God and meet the Real.Chapter Four reveals the gaze of the author Flannery O'Connor and the influence of it on the creation of her works. Just like Hazel, the influence of her family made her a devout believer in religion. Therefore, religion becomes the keynote of her works. However, the degeneration of the society after WWII, the death of her family member and the fatal disease that she would be faced with forced her to experience the lack. Through her gaze at the characters, she preaches to the readers her belief that God could save all the secular people and wishes to find the original wholeness and completeness back through God. However, the arrangements of the death of the religious characters in her novels and stories only prove that God is only an illusory image and human beings could never return to the original state of wholeness and completeness.The conclusion briefly summarizes the significance of interpreting this novel from Lacan's gaze theory. It points out that gaze signifies the lack which the subject will try to fill for his whole lifetime. O'Connor's arrangement of the characters in her works exactly proves this theory. Besides, the inadequacy of studying this novel from the perspective of gaze is also mentioned.
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