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Nothing But The Blood Of Jesus?: O'Connor's Critique Of Protestantism In Wise Blood, Jessica Saunders

English Class Publications

Published in 1949, Flannery O’Connor’s first novel, Wise Blood, satirizes not Christianity itself, but rather man’s twisted practice of the faith that O’Connor held so dear. O’Connor, a devout Roman Catholic living in the Bible Belt, writes to critique the heresy, hypocrisy, and apathy that pervaded the lives of Protestants in the South—a region that O’Connor describes as “hardly Christ-centered” but “most certainly Christ-haunted” (Mystery and Manners 44). O’Connor portrays the characters in Wise Blood as Protestants, non-Christians, or the nihilistic protagonist and hero himself, Hazel Motes, who in his rejection of the gospel, founds the Church of Christ …