A Post-war Tragedy—Violence In Flannery O’Connor’s Wise Blood

Flannery O’Connor’s Wise Blood presents the religious dilemmas and existential crises of characters such as Hazel Motes and Enoch Emory.Scholarly research focuses extensively on the novel’s religious themes and points to the epiphanic effect of violence in obtaining God’s moment of grace,interpreting from religious perspectives such as Roman Catholicism,Gnosticism,or "God-is-dead" theology.However,the role of violence,which serves as a major theme and artistic feature,in the narrative that transcends the interpretation of a particular religious sect,has been overlooked.This thesis argues that the violence in Wise Blood demonstrates the general crisis of post-war capitalist society.Violence and its symbols contain conflicting ideas of religion,existence,and females.Focusing on the instances of violence and their effects on the characters and the narrative as a whole,this thesis explores the textual and socio-historical context,ideologies,and literary aesthetics of violence in Wise Blood.The research method draws on the aesthetic ideas in O’Connor’s critical essays and letters and employs critical theories on violence by Walter Benjamin,Friedrich Nietzsche,and Perrie Bourdieu.It observes that through the use of physical and symbolic violence,the novel creates grotesque imagery and an unsettling atmosphere to highlight the tragedy of violence in post-World War Ⅱ Southern society,from the general social environment down to the individual level.The thesis contextualizes state violence in American society in the Cold War era and discusses how it affects the characters who are marginalized and rebellious to mainstream culture.The traumatized protagonists who suffered from existential problems struggle to find belief and transcendence in a world of materialism and absurd authority.Then the violent acts of the main characters and symbols of violence are examined.The physical and symbolic violence in the novel appears to be a reflection and defense of religious beliefs,materialism,and males’ gaze,but in fact,it is a deconstruction and subversion of the existing order,reflecting contradictory ideologies.Violence and its symbols mean doubly:self-mutilation as both a devotional practice and nihilistic futility,commodities serving as sources of desire and murder weapons,and the female body is both the bearer and performer of violence.Moreover,the violence in the novel is aesthetically charming with gothic divinity and tragic sublimity.The violence suffered by the anti-hero characters and their violent struggle against their fate is tragic and shocking,which alludes to the crisis of modernity in the context of the Cold War.The violence in Wise Blood serves not only as a plot device but also as a reflection of the post-war human condition and as a means to achieve catharsis.