An Analysis Of Wise Blood From The Perspective Of Ethical Literary Criticism

Flannery O'Connor is considered as one of the most outstanding female writers in the south of America in twentieth century. Her novels not only reflect her religious faith, but also examine the questions of morality and ethics from the aspects of her own emotion and faith. When the novel came out in 1952, it immediately became a sensation in the American literary world and was translated into many languages. In 1972, the story was shot into a movie with the same name Wise Blood in the United States. While writing the novel, O'Connor was suffering from the disease which made her have a special sensitivity and cared for life and society. She not only depicts varied characters with delicate and tragic style but also depicts the various, strange and absurd phenomena in Wise Blood. Behind these phenomena are the author's deep thoughts about the society, human nature, and morality.This thesis adopts the methodology of ethical literary criticism to analyze Wise Blood from the aspect of three basic core terms including ethical identity, ethical environment and ethical consciousness. Through the close-reading of the novel, the author of the paper aims to explore the ethical and moral phenomena, illustrate the ethical reasons behind the ethical and moral phenomena, reveal the ethical thoughts and hope to enlighten the modern society.This thesis consists of six parts including an introduction and a conclusion. The introduction part gives a brief account of the writer O'Connor, Wise Blood, literature review and the thesis statement.Chapter One respectively introduces the development of the ethical literary criticism, the connotation of the ethical literary criticism and the three basic core terms applied in this thesis including ethical identity, ethical environment and ethical consciousness, which lays a solid theoretical foundation for the following parts.Chapter Two analyzes the ethical and moral problems in the four main characters, Hazel, Enoch, Hawks and Sabbath, which expose the disorder of their ethical identities: confusion, loss, transformation and rebel.Chapter Three gives a detailed analysis of the reason that causes the problems, which comes from the oppression of the ethical environment. Such kind of oppression includes the oppression of nihilism, utilitarianism and sexism.Chapter Four discusses Hazel's awareness of ethical consciousness. Hazel finally recalls his own ethical consciousness and sublimates his soul through the ways of recollecting belief, reconstructing self and reviving the love. Such phenomenon has a deep significance, which not only reveals the writer O'Connor's ethics, but also has a positive inspiration to today's society.The last part is the conclusion of the thesis, which is a summary and overview of the thesis. This thesis from the aspect of the ethical literary criticism analyzes the ethical elements in Wise Blood, points out the writer O'Connor's ethics and then provides a different view for people to study the works of O'Connor.