At the beginning of the film, we see a young Hazel Motes in a flashback being absolutely terrorized by his preacher grandfather. The entire scene is odd. Hazel is in what looks like a large circus tent with dark creepy lighting, coffins, and sounds of his grandfather spitting hellfire and brimstone, yet there is still something else that leaves me pondering. In this flashback, young Hazel is standing on rocky dirt ground, and eventually we see him pick up this rocky ground and put it in each of his shoes. While this is merely a dreamlike flashback, this is not the only time we see Hazel do this in the Wise Blood film. Towards the end of the film when Hazel’s landlady is taking care of him, she picks up his shoes and notices they are quite heavy. As she feels their weight, she realizes there is something in them and dumps the contents onto the ground. To her surprise, she finds rocks and dirt in Hazel’s shoes. This left me wondering, what makes Hazel want to put rocks in his shoes?
In class we discussed the idea that Hazel puts the rocks in his shoes in a way to punish himself. Not only do we see self-punishment with the rocks, but also with the barbed wire wrapped around his torso and his self-inflicted blindness. While I do agree that this was no doubt a way for Hazel to punish himself for the sins that he has committed, I wonder, why did he punish himself to that extent? As Brian Ingraffia mentioned in his journal article, “If Jesus Existed, I Wouldn’t Be Clean: Self Torture in Flannery O’Connor’s Wise Blood,” he discusses the idea that Hazel punishes himself in this way to show that he has finally been converted to Christianity. Ingraffia, as well as other critics, see Hazel’s acts of self-punishment as a sort of penance, even though they are extremely brutal and painful. After reading this article discussing Hazel’s self-punishment, it then left me asking, could he have repented in a less severe way?
Catholics and protestants have been repenting in ways far less painful than blinding oneself and walking on rock shards, so why does Hazel Motes face his penance in this way?
Could he not simply confessed to the sins he has committed like most Christians do now? What Ingraffia and other critics have argued while trying to answer this question is that Hazel could not simply confess because thus far in his life that is not the kind of Christianity he has been taught. From the time Hazel was a young boy, he was only taught Christianity to its extreme. His grandfather instilled a version of God in Hazel’s mind that inflicted fear in him to the extent that he would pee himself. Because of this, Hazel only knows religion by its extremes. To him, the punishment of being blind, putting rocks in his shoes, and wrapping himself in barbed wire is perfectly just. Hazel was taught the extreme hellfire and brimstone version of God which carried over into every aspect of his life. Because he was taught this extreme version of Christianity, in his journey away from it, Hazel felt he needed to sin in the most extreme way. He sleeps with a prostitute, creates a religion without Christ, and even murders a man. These extreme acts of sin then lead to his extreme acts of penance. To Hazel though, this is all fitting because “his life of penance ‘is as grotesque in his embrace of God as his life of flight from God had been” (Ingraffia 79). To you and me these acts of penance make us wince and scratch our heads, but to Hazel they make perfect sense. Hazel knows no other way of being a good Christian than to devout his whole life to every extreme.
Source: Ingraffia, Brian. “‘If Jesus Existed I Wouldn’t Be Clean’: Self-Torture in Flannery O’Connor’s Wise Blood.” Flannery O'Connor Review, vol. 7, 2009, pp. 78–86.
Hi Devin! Your response to the movie was very thought provoking and I feel you explained your opinion very well. After reading your post, I started thinking about other reasons why Hazel would blind himself, besides punishing himself for sins. In the critical essay I found, “Hazel Motes as a Flesh-Mortifying Saint in Flannery O’Connor’s Wise Blood,” the author, Ralph C. Wood, presents the idea that Hazel was not punishing himself for the sins that he committed, but rather because he was being called upon by God himself and he was becoming the prophet. Wood explains that maybe Hazel was “becoming the prophet and witness that, from his childhood, he was called and meant to be” (88). When you are born, the body is worth nothing because the body has not been baptized, however when returning, the body must become nothing as well. Hazel had started out as nothing, however he had to reduce his body to nothing and he did this by blinding himself with quick lime, walking on shards of glass and rocks, and wrapping himself in barbed wire (87). I think Ralph C. Wood presents an interesting idea that I did not consider after watching the movie. I believe this is another good idea to think about when being asked the deeper meaning behind Hazel’s actions of blinding himself and self-harming himself.
ReplyDeleteWood, Ralph C. “Hazel Motes as a Flesh-Mortifying Saint in Flannery O’Connor’s Wise Blood.” Flannery O'Connor Review, vol. 7, 2009, pp. 87–93. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/26671166. Accessed 23 Feb. 2021.