ineluctable mystery and the pagan impuls

7/24/2019 Ineluctable Mystery and the Pagan Impuls

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INELUCTABLEMYSTERY

&

THEPAGANIMPULSE

SACRAMENTALITY IN

FLANNERYOCONNORSWise Blood

Presented to Dr. Ralph C. Wood

in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements forREL 5357

The 20th Century Catholic Renascence

Baylor University

Daniel J. Marrs

April 28, 2010


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Contents

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 OConnor and Danilou as Interlocutors? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

1.1 TheNouvelle ThologieConnection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41.2 Analogous Assessments of the Plight of Modernism . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

2 Danilou on Paganism and Idolatry. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72.1 The Validity of the Pagan Impulse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

2.2 The Descent into Idolatry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82.3 Regarding Mystery and its Mis-Location . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93 OConnors Sacramental Vision inWise Blood. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

3.1 QuestioningWise Bloods Sacramental Vision . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123.1.1 Asals Manichean Reading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123.1.2 Desmonds Desacralized Interpretation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133.1.3 Critical Responses to Asals and Desmond . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

3.2 LocatingWise Bloods Sacramentalism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183.2.1 Ineluctable Mystery and Enochs Pagan Impulse . . . . . . . . . . 193.2.2 Idolatry and the Rejection of Christ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

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Introduction

Tout est sacr; les arbres sont chargs de mystres sacramentels.1 Jean Danilou

In a letter to fellow novelist and literary critic John Hawkes, Flannery OConnor remarked, In

the Protestant view, I think Grace and nature dont have much to do with each other. . . . In the

sense that I see things the other way, Im a Catholic writer.2 OConnors religious vision of

the worldin which lifes mundanities and horrors never exclude (and are in fact imbued with)

mystery and divine graceis famously manifest in her writing; she demonstrates a rare ability

to concretize spiritual realities in everyday occurrences without damaging or undermining the

integrity of the latter.3 OConnor called this sensibility an anagogical vision, a vision that is

able to see different levels of reality in one image or one situation especially at the level of the

mystery of the Divine life and our participation in it.4

It seems impossible to doubt that OConnor as an author was concerned with ultimate

mystery as we find it embodied in the concrete world of sense experience, and that her work

should be read with that idea firmly in mind.5 Indeed, OConnor was explicit about the centrality

1Jean Danilou,Le Signe du Temple: ou, de la Prsence de Dieu (Paris: Gallimard, 1942), 11.

2Flannery OConnor,The Habit of Being, ed. Sally Fitzgerald (New York: Farrar, Straus, & Giroux, 1979),389390.

3John F. Desmond,Risen Sons: Flannery OConnors Vision of History(Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press,1987), 2223. Desmond perceptively notes, OConnor preserves the mystery of the scene by leaving it to the readerto envision the connection between the literal details and the hierophany, and she thereby respects both the createdfictional worldandthe reader. She refuses to assign meaning arbitrarily and explicitly, as Faulkner does in A Fable.In short, OConnor creates Voegelins mystery of history,suggestingextensions of meaning through the literal bycarefully adhering to the analogical principle in the act of writing.

4Flannery OConnor,Mystery and Manners, ed. Sally Fitzgerald (New York: Farrar, Straus, & Giroux, 1969), 72.OConnor goes on to equate her views with the medieval understanding of the multiple senses of Scripture; thoughthis method is primarily applied to biblical exegesis, OConnor argues that it represents the correct attitude towardall of creation, nature, and the human scene; it is this vision that the fiction writer has to cultivate if he is evergoing to write stories that have any chance of becoming a permanent part of our literature.

5ibid., 125. It should be noted that there are indeed critics who deny this approach any sort of ascendancy;at least since Josephine Hendins book-length study published in 1970, there has been a current in OConnor

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of sacramental (or prophetic) vision for the Catholic novelist: a prophetic vision brings together

two sets of eyesthe eyes of the Church and the eyes of the novelistinto a single glance,

perceiving mystery in the commonplace.6 However, any responsible reader of OConnor should

also remember her warning that those attempting to interpret her books must realize that her

stories say what cant be said otherwise than with your whole book, that you cant substitute

an abstraction and have the same thing.7 Additionally, OConnor reminds curious readers that

the meaning cannot be captured in an interpretation and that too much interpretation is

certainly worse than too little.8 With these warnings in mind, it seems prudent to follow John

F. Desmonds circumspect example:

My own view is that [OConnors] relationship to religious ideas was a dynamic agon andthat this struggle marked her fiction every step of the way. To view her fiction in such a wayis to see how it embodied those ideas and how the fiction itself came to be shaped by thoseideas. Of course OConnor was cognizant of the cost (one of her favorite terms) of herreligious beliefs, but cognizance does not mean denial. The struggle over the cost is what wesee in the fiction, and the final judgment about the value of my critical perspective must liein how well such ideas illuminate the fiction.9

The purpose of this paper, therefore, is not to reduce OConnors writing to a mere cipher

criticism that finds her theological imagination unpalatable and pits OConnors religious persona against her literaryimagination in such a way that the latter covertly subverts the former. Answering this interpretive question fallsbeyond the purview of this paper. Suffice to say that I see good reason for perceiving mystery within the mundanein OConnors work. For helpful treatments of this issue, see Desmond,Risen Sons, 6ff; and the Introduction toMelvin J. Friedman and Beverly Lyon Clark, eds.,Critical Essays on Flannery OConnor(Boston, MA: G. K. Hall &Co., 1985). Cf. Josephine Hendin,The World of Flannery OConnor(Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press,1972); Ralph C. Wood,Flannery OConnor and the Christ-Haunted South(Grand Rapids, MI: William B. EerdmansPublishing Company, 2004), 6ff.

6OConnor,Mystery and Manners, 179ff: The prophet is a realist of distances, and it is this kind of realism thatgoes into great novels. It is the realism which does not hesitate to distort appearances in order to show a hiddentruth.

7OConnor,Habit of Being, 400.8ibid., 437. Cf. OConnor,Mystery and Manners, 73: Some people have the notion that you read the story and

then climb out of it into the meaning, but for the fiction writer himself the whole story is the meaning, because it isan experience, not an abstraction.

9Desmond,Risen Sons, 7. Additional support for this kind of approach to OConnors fiction can be found ingreat abundance in her own essays and letters. For example, see OConnor, Mystery and Manners, 32.

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for Christian dogma, at the expense of any other pertinent insight, 10 but rather to shed some

illumination on the character and actions of a particular personality in OConnors fiction,

Enoch Emery inWise Blood. Specifically, I wish to demonstrate, using theological insights about

paganism articulated in the writings of Jean Danilou, that Enochs obsession with mystery, his

ritual-infused idolatry, and his regression to the bestial can be seen as evidence for the presence in

OConnors earliest novel of a robustly sacramental (or prophetic) vision of the world, contrary

to the assertions of some literary critics.

Much of the debate aboutWise Bloods sacramentality centers on interpretations of Hazel

Motes actions at the end of the novel, and rightly so.11 However, aside from the questions

surrounding Hazel Motes character, it may be possible to interpret the character and actions

of secondary player Enoch Emery in a way that reveals the world ofWise Bloodto be deeply

sacramental. Enochs story illustrates the ineluctable pull of mystery, speaking powerfully

to the sacramental character of the novels world; early in the narrative Enoch clearly senses

pervasive mystery, but because of his rejection of Jesus, his envy-ridden and lust-driven pursuit

of the mystery leads not to salvation, but toward progressively more foolish displays of idolatry,

culminating with a regression into animalism.

The paper is divided into three major sections: 1) a justification for the validity of using

Danilous theology as an illuminating lens for OConnors fiction; 2) an overview of Danilous

insights regarding paganism in connection with his sacramental understanding of nature; and 3)

an examination of sacramentality inWise Bloodwith a special focus on Enoch Emerys strange

story. Enochs story, in spite of its ultimately tragic (though darkly humorous) ending, can only

work in a world that is imbued with OConnors sacramental vision of reality.

10Robert Jackson, Region, Idolatry, and Catholic Irony: Flannery OConnors Modest Literary Vision, Logos5,no. 1 (2002): 1340, 1920.

11For a recent discussion regarding whether Hazel Motes was a saint (and if so, what kind), see Ralph C. Wood,Hazel Motes as a Flesh-Mortifying Saint in Flannery OConnors Wise Blood,Flannery OConnor Review7 (2009):8793.

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1 OConnor and Danilou as Interlocutors?

It seems prudent to begin this paper by showing that bringing together OConnors fiction and

Danilous theology is more than the reckless association of vaguely homologous ideas from

otherwise disparate sources. Several connections between OConnor and Danilou are evident,

both historical and conceptual.

1.1 TheNouvelle ThologieConnection

OConnor herself states that she was familiar with Danilou and had read some of his work.

Aside from the fact that she possessed at least one of his volumes, 12 she mentions him with

approbation in a letter to Betty Hester: I like this Danielou [sic] very much. There are a lot of

people I can think of that Id like to see read it.13 Additionally, Danilou was at the very center

of the movement in twentieth-century Catholicism known asla nouvelle thologie;14 OConnors

affinity with and respect for the theology represented by this movement is well documented.15

Her essays and letters are replete with favorable references to several prominent representatives of

or peripheral personalities associated with the movement, especially Pierre Teilhard de Chardin,

12Lorine M. Getz,Flannery OConnor: Her Life, Library and Book Reviews, vol. 5, Studies in Women and Religion(New York: The Edwin Mellen Press, 1980), 92.

13OConnor,Habit of Being, 298. I have been unable to ascertain which work OConnor is referring to in thisletter.

14Those within the movement saw themselves as ressourcement theologians, which is to say they saw themselvesas returning to the patristic sources of Christian theology; Dominican theologian Garrigou-Lagrange famouslyargued that the movement was actually a new (and therefore illegitimate) theology. The derogatory appellationstuck. For a helpful overview of Danilous prominent, and even catalytic place within la nouvelle thologie, seeBrian Daley, TheNouvelle Thologieand the Patristic Revival: Sources, Symbols and the Science of Theology,International Journal of Systematic Theology 7, no. 4 (2005): 362382. See also Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, La

Nouvelle Thologie o va-t-elle?Angelicum, no. 23 (1946): 126145.15That OConnors Catholicism (or her Thomism) was broadly in line with la nouvelle thologieis evident in the

scholars OConnor herself read and cited most often, as well is in the analyses of her theology in the secondaryliterature. See Douglas Robillard, Jr., Revisiting the Catholic Literary Imagination,Modern Fiction Studies53, no. 1(2007): 174182; Getz,Life, Library and Book Reviews, 72ff; Desmond,Risen Sons, 16; Ralph C. Wood, BenedictXVI, Flannery OConnor and the Divine Eros, inReason, Fiction and Faith: An International Flannery OConnorConference(Rome, Italy: Pontifical University of the Holy Cross, April 21, 2009).

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Etienne Gilson, and Jacques Maritain, and her personal library included a plethora of works by

variousressourcementtheologians.16

Althoughla nouvelle thologieas a movement did not really begin to flourish until around the

time of OConnors death in 1964, OConnor was clearly familiar with ressourcementtheologians

and her writings contain (implicitly in her fiction and explicitly in her non-fiction) a clear affinity

for their theological sensibility. Ralph C. Wood notes that the core claim ofla nouvelle thologie

lies in its contention that nature and grace must be distinguished but not separated.17 This

refusal to legitimize the stratification of nature and grace into strictly discrete realms is strikingly

evident throughout OConnors uvre. In addition to the broadnouvelle thologieconnection,

Danilou and OConnor both read and were influenced by some of the same theologians; for

example, Romano Guardini figures prominently in OConnors correspondence and in several of

Danilous books, especially inDieu et Nous.18

1.2 Analogous Assessments of the Plight of Modernism

Danilou was particularly concerned about the modern tendency to compartmentalize, marginal-

ize, and even deny the spiritual realm in favor of the material. In Scandaleuse Vrithe writes,

[P]our la plupart des hommes ce qui est le plus rel est le monde de leur vie matrielle et cequi est le plus irrel le monde de Dieu. Cest l un fait si massif, une subversion si radicale etdans laquelle lhumanit est si incruste que nous nous en apercevons peine et que ce quiest pch nous apparat nature. Cest en particulier le caractre foncier dun humanisme quiprtend avoir en lui-mme sa consistance et pour qui la dimension religieuse serait une sortede sucrot arbitraire, de matire option.19

16Included in her collection were works by (in addition to the writers listed above) Henri de Lubac, Louis Bouyer,

Claude Tresmontant, Jean Mouroux, and Yves Congar. See Getz,Life, Library and Book Reviews, 85ff.17Wood, Benedict XVI, Flannery OConnor and the Divine Eros, 2.

18See Jean Danilou,Dieu et Nous(Paris: Bernard Grasset Editeur, 1956), 14, 23; OConnor, Habit of Being, 99,131, 191, 242, 296. The observation of common influence could be made just as easily with regard to Pascal, Chardin,Jung, and a multitude of others.

19Jean Danilou,Scandaleuse Vrit(Paris: Librairie Arthme Fayard, 1961), 16.

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Danilou goes on to juxtapose this modern view of things with the scriptural truth that la

dimension religieuse est constitutive de lhomme comme tel. This mirrors exactly OConnors

central concerns about the modern world. Arguing that an artist should penetrate the concrete

world in order to find at its depths the image of its source, the image of ultimately reality,

OConnor proceeds to lament the loss over the last few centuries of the understanding that

there is something more (and more real) beyond the visible.20 Against the modern feeling that

the reaches of reality end very close to the surface, OConnor consistently sought to reveal

anagogically the mystery that permeates the mundane.21 Additionally, her affirmation that for

her being a Catholic was not merely an optional accessory but the totality of her identity flies in

the face of modernitys tendency to compartmentalize the religious, and meshes very well with

Danilous vision.22

Similarly, both OConnor and Danilou maintained (against modern conceptions of human

autonomous freedom and agnostic skepticism) that religious dogma, far from obscuring reality

and restricting freedom of the soul, is a vehicle of freedom. OConnor wrote that dogma is an

instrument for penetrating reality, and is about the only thing left in the world that surely

guards and respects mystery.23 Danilou, inScandaleuse et Vrit, argued vigorously that liberty

itself depends on and is inextricably bound up with transcendent, mysterious truths and the

dogmas that surround them.24

All of this indicates a substantial similarity between Danilou and OConnor, and supports

the legitimacy of drawing conceptual connections between Danilous theology and OConnors

fiction. Though direct evidence of OConnors engagement with Danilous thought is limited,

20OConnor,Mystery and Manners, 157.

21ibid., 157.

22Flannery OConnor,Flannery OConnor: Collected Works, ed. Sally Fitzgerald (New York: The Library ofAmerica, 1988), 930.

23OConnor,Mystery and Manners, 178.

24Danilou,Scandaleuse Vrit, 42f, 71ff.

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they both operated within the same theological milieu and shared similar concerns regarding

twentieth-century physicalism and the subsequent marginalization of mystery.

2 Danilou on Paganism and Idolatry

In order to aid this understanding of the significance of Enoch Emerys story, I will draw

upon theological concepts found in the work of Jean Danilou. The remainder of this section

will delineate Danilous understanding of paganism and idolatry; in the section that follows,

Danilous insights will be used to shed light on Enoch Emerys instinctive gravitation toward the

mysterious, his strange obsession with the new jesus, and his final descent into pure animality.

2.1 The Validity of the Pagan Impulse

For Jean Danilou, the presence of the pagan impulse is itself evidence for the reality of sacra-

mental mysteries. He describes this pagan impulse in its purest form as an elemental religion, the

legitimate and supremely human sensitivity to the theophanic character of creation. Taking a

broadly affirmative attitude toward the original pagan impulse, coupled with ultimate rejection,

he notes that paganism starts with a trs vrai insight that les sources, les fontaines, les chnes

sont remplix de substance sacre, mais il linterprte mal.25 Elsewhere he expands on what he

sees as the validity and the weakness of paganism: he affirms that the pagan religions can (at least

potentially) point toward the one true God; however, they suffer from a fundamental vagueness

and ambiguity and are ultimately insufficient to bring humans into contact with God. 26

Positively, the pagan impulse is grounded in the truth that Paul expresses in Romans that the

25Jean Danilou,Mythes Paens, Mystre Chrtien, vol. 8, Je Sais, Je Crois (Paris: Librairie Arthme Fayard, 1966),39.

26Danilou,Dieu et Nous, 23.

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invisible God is known through visible creation.27 According to Danilou, Paul argues that

le cosmos tout entier prend une dimesnion symbolique. Les ralits qui le constituent, toileset la rgularit de leur cours, le soleil et son clat, lorage et la terreur quil inspire, le rocheret son immuabilit la rose et sa bndiction sont autant de hirophanies, de manifestationsvisibles travers chacune desquelles un aspect de Dieu se manifeste.28

Furthermore, Danilou notes that this understanding of a theophanous creation has a metaphysi-

cal basis in the analogy of being, which is the doctrine that all being is a participation in God, and

therefore bears vestiges of the divine in some sense. Echoing the traditional notion that nature

is (along with Scripture) a sort of book in which God speaks of himself, Danilou asserts that

nature is the only book available to the pagan world, and that it is possible to have an appropriate

response to this revelation in the form of a pagan sense of mystery.29 There is nothing more

natural, or more human, than this sensitivity to mystery; even children are naturally petits

paens, and restricting this natural impulse will make for very unhappy children.30

2.2 The Descent into Idolatry

However, Danilou is quick to follow this rather positive assessment of paganism with a careful

look at its fundamental weaknesses. Cosmic revelation, as appropriated in pagan religion, is

always deformed (though to varying degrees). He identifies three malformations of the pagan

impulse: polytheism, pantheism, and dualism.31 Idolatry is closely associated with the first

malformation; it is a short step from the legitimate and entirely natural recognition of the

hierophanous aspect of nature to the identification of hierophany with divinitythe exchange of

27See Romans 1:1920.


29ibid., 24.

30Danilou,Mythes Paens, Mystre Chrtien, 23.

31Danilou,Dieu et Nous, 41f

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the Creator for the created.32 This leads to an understanding of the world that on the one hand

retains and even augments a largely appropriate sense of mystery in nature, but on the other hand

misperceives at a basal level the true significance of creation, thereby opening the door to every

kind of error. Pagan religion is at best a search for God, a groping in the darkness; only Christian

revelation, specifically the revelation of God in Christ, removes humans from this darkness.33

Danilou manages to affirm the pagan impulse while rejecting any expression of this impulse

that results in idolatry, polytheism, or any other religious system outside of Christianity. He

is careful to deny that pagan religions in any way lead to God apart from Christ. Rather, they

contain and assume (albeit in a limited and more or less warped manner) the legitimate sensitivity

to divine manifestations in creation. Without positive revelation, the pagan will always fail

to achieve his or her divine goal.34 Following Pius XIIs statements in his encyclicalEvangelii

pracecones, Danilou asserts that in the revelation of Christ, natural truths contained in paganism

find their fulfillment: Christs revelation, rather than destroying the pagan impulse, purifies and

transfigures it.35 Based on Danilous thought, one could also arrive at the converse conclusion:

that a rejection of Christ guarantees a descent into the very worst malformations of the pagan

impulse.

2.3 Regarding Mystery and its Mis-Location

A brief clarification of Danilous concept of mystery is in order. Mystery must never be seen

as a way of expressing a lack of understanding about the natural world; true mystery does not

reside in vague, primitive misunderstandings of nature. And although Danilou readily admits

that the premodern world was in some ways more susceptible to a sense of mystery and that the

32Danilou,Mythes Paens, Mystre Chrtien, 34. Cf. Romans 1:20ff.


34ibid., 53.

35Danilou,Mythes Paens, Mystre Chrtien, 39f.

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effects of modern science and technology can sometimes include an apparent loss of mystery,

reason actually serves (in ancient times as much as in the modern era) to purify and locate more

accurately the truly mysterious.36 Herein lies the primary temptation in paganism and the source

of its downfall: to see the natural world not merely as pervasively permeated by mystery, but as

the location and substance of the mystery. This mis-locating of mystery is the very definition

of idolatry. Such paganistic mysticism cannot be sustainedscience and experience can always

demystify that which is not truly mysterious.37

Significantly for our purposes, Danilou explicitly states that the very presence of the pagan

impulse (that is, the sense of mystery in nature) and the proliferation of pagan idolatry speak

powerfully to the sacramentality of nature; God reveals himself through the cosmos to every

human soul.

Ainsi avons-nous suivi les dmarches de lme religieuse paenne, cherchant ttons dansses tnbres le Dieu vivant si proche et si inaccessible. Elles portent un tmoignage massifet valable de la vrit de Dieu. Et nous devons reconnatre dans leurs dmarches cultuelles,

36Danilou,Dieu et Nous, 66: Ce mystre, la raison ne peut le sonder. Mais elle peut du moins y conduire. Et lapparat sa fonction. Elle conduit lesprit jusqu ses frontires. Elle cerne le domaine du mystre. En lucidant tout

ce qui est de son domaine, elle empche de situer ce mystre l o il nest pas. Elle dmystifie les ralits naturellesdont on voudrait faire des mystres. Et cest sa fonction critique et purifcatrice. Mais par ailleurs elle dsigne lesvrais mystres.

37In a sense, Danilou anticipates Denys Turners approach to reason and mystery. Turner sees reason as anatural human power which, when used properly, leads us to the edge of nature and points toward (withoutcomprehending) the pseudo-Dionysian darkness of God. In a complex dialectic of apophatic and cataphaticmovements, reason both leads toward and presupposes a transcendent mystery. For Turner, honest reasonerscome to see reason itself as having a certain apophatic character, based on some degree of apprehension of anunderlying and all-pervading mystery. Turner locates this mystery in an apprehension of the radical contingency ofthe universe, embodied in the question of Why anything?a question which he sees as unavoidable and as leadingultimately toward proof for the existence of a transcendent creator. Cutting off the possibility of this question(along with all other metaphysically-oriented questions) in an early-Wittgensteinian manner undermines reason,and leads to what Turner calls an agnostic curtailment of reason rather than an apophatic extension of it. Thisidea of apophatic extension is just what underlies Danilous understanding of mystery and OConnors propheticvision; it allows and even celebrates the vital importance of presupposing and reaching for mystery embodied inthe mundane objects and events of this life. See Denys Turner, Faith, Reason, and the Existence of God(CambridgeUniversity Press, 2004, rep. 2005), 48ff, 119, 233236, 242. For a fascinating recent assessment of why metaphysicalsuspicion undermines the exercise of reason, see Stanley Fish, Are There Secular Reasons?The New York Times(February 22, 2010): http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/22/are\bibrangedashthere\bibrangedashsecular\bibrangedashreasons/?pagemode=print.

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doctrinales, mystiques, lexpression dune rvlation de Dieu qui parle toute me humaine travers le cosmos, la conscience et lesprit.38

In summary, Danilou sees a sensitivity to mystery and the abundance of pagan mythology,

rituals, and idolatry as possible only in a world that is sacramental in character. Apart from the

analogy of being and the consequently theophanous aspect of the created universe, the pagan

impulse makes no sense, and indeed, would not exist. However, he is quick to point out that the

pagan impulse without positive revelation is never adequate. Christ fulfills and transfigures that

which is valid in paganism; apart from the revelation of Christ, paganism all too often degrades

into increasingly foolish instantiations of idolatry, directed either toward various created objects

or toward the self. With this brief overview of Danilous thoughts on paganism, we are prepared

to examine Enoch Emerys story inWise Blood.

3 OConnors Sacramental Vision inWise Blood

As noted above, certain OConnor critics find reason to doubt the presence of OConnors

trademark sacramental vision inWise Blood. This section is therefore divided into two parts: first,

an analysis of the best arguments againstWise Bloods sacramental vision and various critical

responses to those arguments (in order to situate this paper within the ongoing debate); second,

an examination of pertinent sections inWise Blood, with continual reference to Danilous ideas

to elaborate and support the idea that Enoch Emerys story can only work in a world that is

fundamentally shaped by OConnors uniquely sacramental vision.


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3.1 QuestioningWise Bloods Sacramental Vision

The most fascinating arguments for a supposedly desacralized world inWise Bloodcome from

critics who for the most part are happy to admit (and indeed see as central) the fact that a strongly

sacramental vision undergirds OConnors fiction in general. Due to space constraints, I will

focus on what I take to be the two most compelling cases of critics who, in spite of taking a

religious approach to interpreting OConnor and recognizing the centrality of her sacramental

vision, find the world ofWise Bloodsomewhat lacking, sacramentally speaking.

3.1.1 Asals Manichean Reading

In his brilliant bookFlannery OConnor: The Imagination of Extremity, Frederick Asals contendsthat the sacramental vision so prominent in OConnors later work is nowhere visible in

Wise Blood.39 Based on an understanding of sacramentality drawn from OConnors own

writings, Asals finds that the sensible, physical world ofWise Blood, far from being portrayed

as fundamentally good or viewed as an image of its source (i.e., theophanic), overwhelms the

characters with its ugliness and brutality to such an extent that the only possible reaction is either

a descent into utter animality or an escape through blindness, asceticism, and the pursuit of

death.40 Furthermore, Asals seesWise Bloods portrayal of the human body as unrelentingly

negative: No orthodox religious theme, after all, will account . . . for the thoroughgoing

revulsion at the human body that is everywhere present in Wise Blood. The physical grotesqueries

related to the human body throughout the novelskin and dental blemishes figure prominently

in the storycan hardly be attributed to godlessness.41

Additionally, usually reliable signals of sacramentality, such as the sky, appear inWise Blood

39Frederick Asals,Flannery OConnor: The Imagination of Extremity (Athens, GA: The University of GeorgiaPress, 1982), 58.

40ibid., 58.

41ibid., 58.

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to carry no significant connotations or sacramental overtones in Asals estimation.42 He

hypothesizes that examination of the imagery ofWise Bloodleads to one inescapable conclusion

. . . the novel can hardly be said to be deeply informed by the Catholic sacramental view of life.43

Asals also envisions a connection between Hazel Motes apparent escape into otherworldliness at

the end of the novel and the dilemma faced by OConnor herself (or at least, by the narrator):

the narrative eye of the novel . . . can discover no spirit in the earthly matter at which it stares.44

Wise Bloods radical naturalistic symbolism, according to Asals, epitomizes without tran-

scending: it defines a world wholly given over to mechanistic laws and a primitive evolutionary

ethic; the Christian motifs, though present, are only elaborate parodies. 45 Asals concludes by

applying OConnors own words as a sort of criticism: Wise Bloodat best has only reflected our

broken condition instead of reflecting the image at the heart of things.46 Asals final assessment

is thatWise Bloodis in its deepest implications a Manichean book.47

3.1.2 Desmonds Desacralized Interpretation

John F. Desmonds reading ofWise Bloodclosely mirrors aspects of Asals work. Like Asals, he

finds the naturalistic imagery too negative and dehumanizing to function in any meaningfully

sacramental way.48 He notes that the sun, frequently a signal image of the divine throughout

OConnors fiction, is conspicuously absent inWise Blood, replaced instead by the dominant

42Asals,The Imagination of Extremity, 59.

43ibid., 5960.

44ibid., 60.

45ibid., 60.

46ibid., 60. Cf. OConnor,Mystery and Manners, 168.47Asals,The Imagination of Extremity, 58. It should be observed that Asals qualifies this judgment in a footnote:

he recognizes that his use of Manichean is not strictly accurate, historically speaking. He writes, The problem isthat no traditional category conveys exactly the radical dualism ofWise Blood, yet Manicheanperhaps comes closerthan any other recognizable term to expressing the vision at work here. (A possible alternative is Gnostic).

48Desmond,Risen Sons, 59.

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symbol of rain which functions as an oblique symbol of divine presence at three crucial turning

points for Haze: it leaks into Hazes car (a primary symbol of Hazes pursuit of autonomy and

escape), damages the new jesus mummy, and is present when Haze goes out for his last walk,

which culminates in his death.49 Unlike the sun, which usually coincides in OConnors fiction

with blinding revelation and conversion, the rain is a haunting and destructive presence.

These kinds of observations lead Desmond to contend thatWise Bloods imagery indicates a

desacralized world; the images never undergo the kind of profound symbolic transformation

that would help imagisticallydramatizea redemptive process at work. Rather than a redemptive

vision or a gracious action of transformation, Wise Bloods images speak only of negative action

and destruction, and therefore do not function in a Christian analogical sense.50

It seems that Desmond connects sacramentality with redemption. He sees grotesque or

horrific images as non-sacramental apart from actual transformation. Though Desmond does not

go so far as to accuseWise Bloodof Manichean tendencies, he clearly sees the sensible world of

Wise Bloodas thoroughly desacralized, and he follows Asals in seeing Hazes actions in the final

chapters as indicative of a withdrawal from the world, a retreat to inwardness: lacking these

external means of spiritual transformation, Haze necessarily turns inward to act out his belief

through his own body.51

Furthermore, Desmond, like Asals, sees reflected in Motes final days OConnors quandary

as an author, i.e., the specific problems of transmitting vision in this novel. 52 In Desmonds

articulation of this perceived predicament, OConnor deliberately employs from the beginning

of the novel an imagistic strategy of flattening and dehumanizing (either with animal or machine

imagery) in an effort to develop the theme of a world that has largely abandoned any interest in


50ibid., 59.

51ibid., 61.

52ibid., 57.

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the divine and lacks any religious self-image.53 This strategy, though effective, leaves little room

for prophetic vision:

Since [this world] has largely closed itself to a vision of the transforming power of the

numinous, its dominant images reflect that reduction to the natural order which is a logicalresult of its view of reality. . . . Lacking a vision of the numinous, Hazes world suffers fromthe kind of metaphysical misplacement that results in idol-making, the worship of an objector image to which a confusion of vision has erroneously imputed transcendent significance.54

In Desmonds analysis, the imagery of extreme degradation inWise Bloodfails to undergo

the process of imaginative transformation in order to unite analogically the mundane and the

grotesque with the workings of grace.55 Therefore, the world ofWise Bloodremains (almost)

entirely desacralized, with only the briefest glimmers of the numinous at the peripheries of thestory.56

3.1.3 Critical Responses to Asals and Desmond

One of the more direct critical responses to both Asals and Desmonds claims comes from

Robert H. Brinkmeyer, Jr., who argues that Asals incorrectly pits OConnors ideas of asceticism

and sacramentality against one another.57 By associating asceticism with a Manichean impulse

to see matter as evil, and sacramentalism with the tendency to see the world as theophanic and

redemptive, Asals shortchanges the complexity ofWise Bloodand the richness of OConnors

imagination. Brinkmeyer goes on to point out that asceticism and sacramentalism have histori-

cally been seen as interwoven. Following the work of Geoffrey Galt Harpham and Elaine Scarry,


54ibid., 5758.55ibid., 63.

56Even these brief glimmers of potentially sacramental imagery are marred for Desmond by the fact that they areusually associated with the sky, and hence, are beyond this-worldly existence.

57Robert H. Brinkmeyer, Jr., Jesus, Stab Me in the Heart!:Wise Blood, Wounding, and Sacramental Aesthetics,inNew Essays on Wise Blood, ed. Michael Kreyling (Cambridge University Press, 1995), 7879.

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Brinkmeyer contends that asceticism both denigrates and dignifies the body by disciplining

it in such a way that it becomes a sort of tool for relating directly with the sacred (without

intermediaries).

By in effect canceling the world, asceticism thus highlights the direct relationship betweenthe body and the sacred. This world-destroying motion is not that of . . . nihilism, because itis not the disembodied consciousness that reigns supreme, but the sentient body penetratedby the divine.58

Therefore, on Brinkmeyers reading,Wise Bloodhas a sacramental vision, but it is of a world-

canceling and body-celebrating variety. Realizing that the body and spirit cannot be sundered,

Haze uses his body to relate spiritually with the divine through extreme asceticism. 59 Using this

understanding of asceticism, Brinkmeyer interprets Haze Motes actions as being in line with

a redemptive, sacramentally grounded vision.60 Contrary to the common interpretation that

Enoch and Haze represent Manichean movements toward the dual poles of matter and spirit,

Brinkmeyer sees Motes as a kind of saint. Pointing out that violence often announces the entrance

of divine grace in OConnor (bodily injury or death almost always signal the penetration of the

divine), Brinkmeyer locates the apparent peculiarity ofWise Bloodin the fact that the violence

in Hazes case is self-inflicted.61

Strangely, after declaring several times thatWise Bloodis sacramentalratherthan Manichean,

Brinkmeyer asserts that OConnors ascetic vision is both sacramentalandManichean.62 Citing

OConnors affinity for certain tendencies found in Hebraic Yahwism and Southern Fundamen-

talism, Brinkmeyer sees OConnors depictions of violent grace as so devaluing and destructive

of nature and culture before the looming, otherworldly presence of Yahweh that in a sense the

58Brinkmeyer, Jr., Jesus, Stab Me in the Heart! 8081.

59ibid., 81.

60ibid., 81ff.

61ibid., 8384.

62ibid., 84.

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world, the middle-ground between the individual and Yahweh, all but disappears.63 He concludes

by asserting that the middle-ground (i.e., the world outside the body) is finally worthless for

OConnor, and that it must often be negated for the sake of the individual relationship with

God.64

Ralph C. Wood offers an alternative argument forWise Bloods sacramental vision based on a

more circumspect understanding of Hazel Motes asceticism. Contrary to the claims of Susan

Srigley, who (somewhat like Brinkmeyer) seems to see Hazes self-abnegation as a demonstration

of an individualistic pursuit of salvation, Wood sees the possibility that Hazes asceticism should

be understood as gargantuan penitence [i.e., repenting from specific sins performed in and with

his body] in gargantuan gratitude for the salvation that has already overcome his Sin [original sin],

and that Haze is sacramentally participating in the atoning death of his Savior.65 Furthermore,

Hazes broken body becomes a kind of witness to a small cloud of witnesses; Wise Bloodneed

not be interpreted as a celebration of solitary salvation at the expense of the external world, as

Brinkmeyer seems to suggest.

63Brinkmeyer, Jr., Jesus, Stab Me in the Heart! 84. Brinkmeyer supports this conclusion using statementsOConnor made about her work sounding like the Old Testament and the fact that her characters relate directly toGod. Cf. OConnor,Habit of Being, 111.

64Although this is not primarily a paper about asceticism, I feel compelled at this point to offer a correctionto what I see as a serious misunderstanding of asceticism in Brinkmeyers article. Asceticism is most properlyunderstood as a realignment of the bodily senses according to sacramental realities. Although the ascetics harshtreatment of the body may seem contrary to sacramentalisms dignifying effects, the true goal of asceticism isnot the destruction of the body or the negation of the world, but rather an effort to train the body out of sinful

pleasure-seeking and idolatrous tendencies in relation to the created order. In this sense, asceticism is profoundlysacramentalit seeks to re-value the body and the worldfortheir sacramental significance and for the sake of theGod whose image they are. There is no hint of Manichean ideas underlying true asceticism; it is best understood notas a denial or withdrawal from the world, but as a transforming, re-visioning of it, the ability to comprehend in asingle glance the whole world as a unified theophany. Extremely helpful in this regard is the work of St Maximusthe Confessor; see especiallyAmbiguum10.

65Wood, Hazel Motes as a Flesh-Mortifying Saint in Flannery OConnorsWise Blood, 90.

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3.2 LocatingWise Bloods Sacramentalism

As should now be obvious, the main thrust of the arguments thatWise Bloodlacks OConnors

characteristic sacramental vision centers upon the degraded imagery and the interpretive dilemmas

surrounding the fate of Hazel Motes. The apparent gap between the degraded world ofWise

Bloodand OConnors professed sacramentalism leads certain critics to see in Motes actions

an uncharacteristically (for OConnor) Manichean renunciation of the world, in contrast to her

later sacramentalism. I believe that in some ways the objections of Asals and Desmond have

been answered effectively by Wood and Brinkmeyer. Woods analysis is especially valuable for its

suggestions regarding the possibility and nature of Motes final redemption, and demonstrates

compellingly that Motes asceticism need be seen neither as a half-Manichean, half-sacramentalwork of individual salvation (contra Brinkmeyer) nor as a purely spiritual (and therefore non-

sacramental) religiosity based on withdrawal from the world (contra Asals and Desmond).

Brinkmeyers response, though useful for accentuating inconsistencies in Asals and Desmonds

arguments, is somewhat less helpful than Woods; Brinkmeyer remains mired in the notion that

Wise Bloodis somehow tainted by Manichean leanings, and that these tendencies are legitimately

connected with OConnors notions of sacramentalism and asceticism!

In the following paragraphs I hope to contribute to the discussion surrounding Wise Bloods

sacramentalism. Even apart from the questions of Hazes redemption and the nature of his

extreme asceticism,66 the presence of mystery, paganism, and idolatry in the story of Enoch

Emery provides more than enough evidence to demand that we as readers recognize a profoundly

sacramental vision at work in the narrative.

66These are questions which I believe have been handled well by others, and like Wood, I believe that the issue ofMotes final destination is not for the novel to answer. OConnor seems more interested in getting her readers towonder deeply about Motes grotesque performance of sacrificial suffering than in providing easily accessible andneatly squared-off answers or interpretations.

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3.2.1 Ineluctable Mystery and Enochs Pagan Impulse

Asals repeatedly refers to Enoch Emery and his actions as moronic. 67 Specifically, he sees

Enochs susceptibility to mystery and his consequent engagement in primitive idolatry as nothing

more than gullible simplicity and animalistic instinctivism. However, according to Danilous

notion of the pagan impulse, Enoch Emerys actions contain to some extent a very natural,

appropriate, and eminently human impulse.

Enochs existence is defined by his overwhelming sense of pervasive mystery. In a manner

that matches almost uncannily Danilous description of the development of pagan rites as

slow and circular approaches toward the central locus of the mystery (as perceived by the rites

practitioner), Enochs days are structured around a series of rituals that culminate in his approachto the central mystery: a shrunken mummy residing in the depths of the Muvseevum, in what

Enoch feels to be the mysterious center of the city.68

Danilou argues that the illegitimate location of mystery within the created order arises

from the legitimate sensitivity to the theophanic aspect of creation. Enochs attitude toward the

shrunken mummy bears all of the signs of this natural (and in some ways legitimate) sensitivity

to mystery.69 He finds himself so stunned and awed and overwhelmed that just to think about it

made him sweat.70 He is driven to speechlessness: he knows that the words on the card outside

the case couldnt say the mystery, that no words could capture the mysterious reality hidden in

67Asals,The Imagination of Extremity, 44, 45.

68Flannery OConnor,Wise Blood, inFlannery OConnor: Collected Works, ed. Sally Fitzgerald (New York:The Library of America, [1952] 1988), 46, 55. Note that all page references for Wise Bloodthroughout this papercorrespond to the text as found in theCollected Works.

69It should be noted that Enochs willingness to see mysterious significance is not limited to the shrunken mummyor things directly related to it. For example, while preparing his rooms to receive the new jesus, he reads bizarremeanings into the inanimate pictures on the wall and the furniture. For Enoch, the whole world is filled withmystery, but his mis-identification of the mystery leads him into terror and competition rather than love andworship.

70ibid., 45.

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plain sight, right there in a glass case for everybody to see.71

After sharing this mystery with Haze Motes, Enochs wise blood begins to move him

in new ways; whereas previously it had led him into a ritualized obsession with a mis-located

mystery, now his blood, more sensitive than any other part of him, is pushing him toward some

ineffable but strongly felt destiny.72 Enochs sense that he had always known that something was

going to happen to him, coupled with the fact that he instinctively links it to the mystery located

in the shrunken mummy, suggests Enoch is displaying a malformed version of the understanding

that he is meant for union with God. The human tendency to see mystery as centrally relevant

to human life and destiny is an expression of Augustines claim that the human soul is restless

until it rests in God.

That Enoch exemplifies a sort of warped desire for deification becomes more evident as his

obsession develops and takes shape. His wise blood leads him to prepare a perverse tabernacle in

his rooms; mirroring his original system of rituals in which he gradually approached the museum

and the ineffably meaningful mystery it contained, he began with the least important thing and

worked around and in toward the center where the meaning was.73 As his work progresses he

gradually comes to realize what it all means: the cabinet was to be used FOR something, and

that something turns out to be a perverse Holy of Holies, a dwelling place for the shrunken

mummy, or the new jesus as Enoch comes to think of it after hearing Hazel Motes impassioned

preaching of the Church without Christ.74 After stealing the mummy and installing the new

jesus in his homemade tabernacle, Enochs desire for communion with the mystery seems on

the verge of fulfillment; however, he meets only with bitter disappointment. His vague notion

71OConnor,Wise Blood, 45. Again, there is something right about Enochs recognition that hidden mysteriesimbue plainly visible reality.

72ibid., 73.

73ibid., 75.

74ibid., 76, 8081.

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that his mystical encounter with the new jesus will transform him ends with nothing more

than a sneeze, leading Enoch to the conclusion that so far as he was now concerned, one jesus

was as bad as another.75

Thus far, Enoch Emerys actions and attitudes clearly arise from a world that can only

be described as sacramental. His misidentification of the mystery and his foolish ritualism

notwithstanding, Enoch represents the following natural human responses to a theophanic world:

a sensitivity and susceptibility to the pull of mystery and the desire for union with this mystery

(i.e., deification), expressed in a series of rituals culminating in an ultimately disappointing

attempt at transformative communion with the new jesus. For Danilou, the presence of even

such warped versions of the pagan impulse constitute powerful evidence for the sacramentality

of nature.

3.2.2 Idolatry and the Rejection of Christ

Obviously, Enochs paganism takes a particularly misshapen form. However, this does not under-

mineWise Bloods sacramentalism. Following Danilous notion that Christ is the fulfillment

of the pagan impulse, and that in him the natural human sensitivity to mystery and the desire

for union with that mystery are purified and transfigured, we also find that the converse is true:

a rejection of Christ guarantees a descent into the very worst sorts of malformations of the

pagan impulse. The human sensitivity to and attraction toward mystery, vague and unfruitful

apart from the revelation of Christ, take a particularly vicious turn when coupled with a blatant

rejection of Christs revelation. In Enochs story, we see this tragedy played out to its full extent.

Almost the first thing we learn about Enoch is the fact that he doesnt go in for a lot of Jesus

business.76

This special aversion to Jesus becomes progressively clearer throughout the story.

75OConnor, Wise Blood, 9899.

76ibid., 23.

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Enoch ascribes his wise blood, his susceptibility to mystery, not to God but to his father, who

looks just like Jesus. It is almost as if, even in his rejection of Jesus, Enoch wants to transfer

Jesus significance to someone or something else. Perhaps this explains his immediate association

of Hazes new jesus with the shrunken mummy.77

Significantly, Enochs sense of mystery has already become so warped that even in his simple-

minded idolization of the shrunken mummy, his focus is subtly bent inward. The pagan impulse,

originally a sense of awe that ideally leads one out of oneself and into worship of the mystery, has

already become for Enoch a kind of self-focused awe. Enoch thinks of the unspeakable mystery

of the shrunken mummy as being inside him [Enoch], a terrible knowledge without any words

to it, a terrible knowledge like a big nerve growing inside him. 78

Further evidence that Enochs natural pagan impulse has devolved into unnatural channels

comes from the psychological features of his rituals, which are characterized by envy, lust, and

fear. His daily visits to the pool and the hotdog stand are geared toward the satisfaction of his

desire to see a certain woman in her bathing suit or to make some suggestive remarks to the

waitress.79 His routine observations of the animals in the zoo are marked by a mixture of awe

and hate;80 when he attempts to prepare his room as a tabernacle for the new jesus, Enoch

feels threatened by the picture of the moose; he wonders whether the furniture is against him,

and has to fight the nasty impulse to kick it to pieces.81

Having rejected Jesus and turned the world into a source of personal, illegitimate pleasure,

Enochs sense of mystery has become entirely unanchored from the theophanic aspect of creation;

the mystery is now a source of fear and bondage. In an increasingly comical fashion, Enoch

77It may also be significant that throughout the novel, Enoch blasphemously mutters Jesus name in connectionwith his various lusts or misperceptions of mystery.


79ibid., 4546.

80ibid., 46.

81ibid., 74.

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becomes utterly controlled by his blood, compelled unwillingly to undertake courses of action in

spite of his dread-saturated sense of impending doom.

Enochs warped pagan impulse and misidentification of mystery culminates in his descent into

pure animality. In spite of his disappointing experiences with the new jesus, Enoch couldnt

get over the expectation that the new jesus was going to do something for him in return for

his services.82 The virtue of hope takes on an utterly vitiated aspect in Enoch: it is made up

of two parts suspicion and one part lust.83 The true character of Enochs restless search now

becomes clearit has devolved into nothing more than a desire for personal glory, what Danilou

identifies as the final malformation of the pagan impulse. In Enochs desire for significance apart

from Christ, he paradoxically becomes less than human. By donning the gorilla suit, Enoch

carries out what Danilou refers to as the modern attempt to rsorber lhomme dans la nature,

exemplifying the inevitable and tragic end of the pagan impulse that excludes Christ. 84

Conclusion

Enochs ascription of significance to mundane rituals and objects is misguided and warped at

many levels; but it contains a seed of truth and, according Danilou, it is only possible in a

world that is thoroughly sacramental in character. In spite of its malformation, Enochs sense of

mystery and desire for union with it (as well as his desire for personal transformation through

this union) reveals a natural human impulse that only makes sense in a world in which God

speaks to humans through nature, i.e., a theophanic, sacramentally shaped world.

Asals seems to make several mistakes along the way to his Manichean interpretation ofWise

Blood. First, he assumes that physical grotesqueries must equal a revulsion at the human body


83ibid., 108.

84Danilou,Mythes Paens, Mystre Chrtien, 17.

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and that the unrelenting ugliness and brutality of the world can only drive the storys characters

out of the world in their quest for redemption. What he fails to recognize is that, while these

grotesque aspects serve to illustrate the effects of human sin on their perception and use of the

world, the sacramental character of the world is not thereby lost, as if the worlds sacramentality

is somehow dependent on the perspectives of the people within it. His conclusion thatWise

Bloodonly manages to reflect our broken condition, even if true, in no way damages the integrity

of OConnors sacramental vision as an author. Enochs descent merely illustrates the fact that,

as Danilou maintains, the pagan impulse must find its fulfillment in the transfiguring revelation

of Christ; rejecting Christ, as Enoch so vehemently does, can only lead to degradation.

Second, Asals use of the term Manichean, even in the qualified sense he concedes in his

footnote, is radically misleading and fails to illuminate the substance of the story. Certainly, the

characters inWise Bloodtake Manichean stances at various points throughout the novel, but

the thrust of the narrative is not finally Manichean. Aside from the sacramental structure of

the world assumed throughout the story of Enochs strange pagan journey, Wood has argued

convincingly that Hazes asceticism is in no way a concession that matter is evil, or that salvation

can only happen through negating the world and torturing the body. Rather, Haze recognizes

that his body has been the location of deep spiritual sinblasphemy and rebellionand his fleshly

mortification, though grotesque, can be seen as a valid expression of penitence and a participation

in Christs suffering. A body that has for so long been misused as a tool for sinful pursuits

does not easily make the transition to its proper usage as a servant of the spirit and a willing

participant in the quest to see aright the mystery which permeates creation. Asceticism, used

correctly, is the attempt to retrain the body and re-vision the world. Although Hazes asceticism

was particularly harsh and horrific, it seems more than likely that it grew from fundamentallycorrect motivations.

Desmonds main interpretive shortcoming seems to lie in his belief that divine grace must

be redemptiveratherthan destructive in order for the story to attain a truly sacramental vision.

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In a sense I suppose this is truesacraments are supposed to convey divine grace effectively.

However, the worlds sacramental character is not negated by human rebellion or blindness.

Although Enochs story does not end with redemption, everything about his storyespecially his

pagan impulse and desire for deificationrequires a world that is deeply sacramental.85 Whereas

Desmond sees the prominence of idolatry inWise Bloodas indicative of a lack of OConnors

prophetic vision, I believe it should be read rather as proof of OConnors prophetic vision, in

accord with Danilous insights about the pagan impulse and its various degradations, including

idolatry. Desmond fails to recognize that the brief glimmers of the numinous (combined

with an abundance of misunderstandings of the numinous in the form of pagan pursuits) do

not indicate a lack of sacramentalism; rather, these glimmers simplyarea form of OConnors

sacramental vision.

In conclusion, Danilous articulation of the relationship between a theophanic creation, the

pagan impulse, and the revelation of Christ sheds light on OConnors Wise Blood, revealing its

deeply sacramental character in spite of its degraded imagery and interpretively difficult ending.

Enoch Emerys bizzare journeyfrom mystery-obsessed paganism to thinly-veiled self-worship

to base animalismonly works when mapped onto a sacramental vision of the world such as that

described by Danilou and articulated so beautifully and consistently by OConnor herself.

85I suppose it is possible to say that Enoch was just crazy; however, to do so would lead to the immeasurableproblematization of other aspects of the story.

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Danilou, Jean.Dieu et Nous. Paris: Bernard Grasset Editeur, 1956..Le Signe du Temple: ou, de la Prsence de Dieu. Paris: Gallimard, 1942.

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.Scandaleuse Vrit. Paris: Librairie Arthme Fayard, 1961.

OConnor, Flannery.Flannery OConnor: Collected Works. Edited by Sally Fitzgerald. New York:The Library of America, 1988.

.Mystery and Manners. Edited by Sally Fitzgerald. New York: Farrar, Straus, & Giroux,1969.

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Daley, Brian. TheNouvelle Thologieand the Patristic Revival: Sources, Symbols and the Scienceof Theology.International Journal of Systematic Theology7, no. 4 (2005): 362382.

Desmond, John F.Risen Sons: Flannery OConnors Vision of History. Athens, GA: University ofGeorgia Press, 1987.

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Garrigou-Lagrange, Reginald. La Nouvelle Thologie o va-t-elle? Angelicum, no. 23 (1946):126145.

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Jackson, Robert. Region, Idolatry, and Catholic Irony: Flannery OConnors Modest LiteraryVision.Logos5, no. 1 (2002): 1340.

Robillard, Jr., Douglas. Revisiting the Catholic Literary Imagination.Modern Fiction Studies53,no. 1 (2007): 174182.

Turner, Denys.Faith, Reason, and the Existence of God. Cambridge University Press, 2004, rep.2005.

Wood, Ralph C. Benedict XVI, Flannery OConnor and the Divine Eros. InReason, Fictionand Faith: An International Flannery OConnor Conference. Rome, Italy: Pontifical Universityof the Holy Cross, April 21, 2009.

.Flannery OConnor and the Christ-Haunted South. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. EerdmansPublishing Company, 2004.

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ineluctable mystery and the pagan impuls

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