Mary Flannery O'Connor, Wise Blood

Robert McGill (University of Toronto)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 3.2.4: American (US) Writing and Culture: Postwar and Contemporary, 1945-present.
Vol. editors: Sofia Ahlberg (Uppsala University), Patrick Chura (University of Akron), Emory Elliott (University of California, Riverside), Dale Enggass (University of Utah), Christopher Hugh Gair (University of Glasgow), Matthew Hofer (University of New Mexico), Stephen E. Meats (Pittsburg State University), Kerry Myler (Birmingham Newman University), Justin Parks (UiT - The Arctic University of Norway), Nick Selby (University of East Anglia)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1952

Places

United States (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Novel

Resources

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Wise Blood

appeared as Flannery O'Connor's first book in 1952, and she would later describe it as “a comic novel about a Christian

malgré lui

”. Like her second novel,

The Violent Bear It Away

, it is preoccupied with failed preachers, wrecked automobiles, the denial of vocation and the suffering that accompanies it. The story of Hazel Motes and his failed struggle to escape the shadow of his faith was initially greeted as a satire of religious fanaticism or a psychological inquiry into it. However, critics had to reconsider its religious themes after O'Connor's author's note to the 1962 second edition in which she implicitly proclaimed her own faith, declaring: “That belief in Christ is to some a matter of life and death has been a stumbling block for readers who would prefer to…

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1194 words

Citation: McGill, Robert. "Wise Blood". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 26 July 2002 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=8824, accessed 19 April 2024.]

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