The Christian religion plays a key role in both Flannery O'Connor's Wise Blood and Richard Wright's Black Boy. Despite the authors' ideological differences, both Wright's childhood self and O'Connor's protagonist, Hazel Motes, share common goals: to understand and overcome the traumatic religious experiences imposed on them during their upbringing and, ultimately, achieve identity personal and peace. .Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay The ideologies and cultural contexts of the two texts contrast sharply, but they speak to each other in many significant ways. O'Connor was an outspoken evangelist. Robert Drake explains: “His view of man in this world was uncompromisingly Christian: he saw all life in Christian terms; he thought the gospels were actually true; and accepted the historical teachings of the church” (184). In his failed attempt to escape Christ, Haze reveals to the reader the need for Christian redemption. In his author's note to the second edition, O'Connor makes his intentions clear: rebelling throughout his childhood and early adulthood against his grandmother's religion, Haze spends his life fleeing from the Jesus his grandfather describes as a frightening, "soul-hungry" being who would "chase him over the waters of sin" and "always trap him." the end” (16). As a result, Haze was troubled by the image of Jesus “moving from tree to tree in the back of his mind, a wild, ragged figure beckoning him to turn and walk out into the darkness where he was unsure of his step, where he could have walked on water and not known it and then suddenly realized it and drowned” (18). The only lingering effect of her grandfather's sermons seems to be an intense sense of fear of Jesus - and a conception of him as an evil, threatening being from which Haze must escape. Disillusioned by the religious concepts imposed on them, Wright and Haze seek alternative forms of salvation and flee elsewhere. Robert Butler argues that Black Boy invokes two closely related stories: “an external narrative that documents the injustices and brutalities of the deterministic social environment that traps Wright in both the South and the North, and an internal narrative that dramatizes his transcendence from that environment with its personal spirituality”. energy and free will”. In Black Boy, the reader follows the development of Wright's consciousness and self-concept from a young boy to a young adult. At the same time, Wright provides a cultural picture of the oppressive atmosphere in which he lived. The South of Wright's childhood represents the "hell" of American racism. He is perpetually hungry, suffers frequent physical abuse from his family and is constantly uprooted and moved from house to house. Yet Wright ultimately experiences prosperity and upward mobility, nearly impossible outcomes for a black Southerner. It is Wright's inward escape that allows him to transcend his environment through the harnessing of his own otherworldly strengths and self-determination. This duality of outward and inward narratives is clear throughout Wright's early life in his approach to the rigorous practice of Seventh-day Adventism. , which had been imposed on him. Although he explicitly denounces his grandmother's religion, resents her rigid authoritarian control over him, and claims not to believe in it, Wright is inwardly fascinated by religion in many ways. At the most basic level, Wright is comforted by religion's guarantees of spiritual healing, which gave him hope that his mother could recover from her illness. Even moreImportantly, the sermons serve to arouse and intensify Wright's keen sense of imagination that greatly influences his writing. Thoughts and feelings are transparent and presented in an unmistakable and obvious way. Wright makes it clear to the reader that the physical and emotional suffering he endured in his early life had already worked to establish in him a firm view of life that could not be penetrated or influenced by faith: tell you why if you think it's because of Jesus Christ Crucified you are wrong" (51). Haze reaffirms his thesis that all humanity is clean and in no need of redemption, and that humanity does not even need Christ's assistance for salvation, when he repeatedly tells the zoo maid "I AM clean" (87). He repeats the mantra to the owl in the zoo to reiterate to himself that Christ does not exist. But his doubts about both his cleanliness and his lack of need for Christ to assist him plague him, as evidenced by his reaction to street signs during one of his trips out of town. Haze sees a gray boulder next to the road: “The white letters on the boulder say: Woe to the Blasphemer and the Pungent! WILL HELL SWALLOW YOU?" (71). The message on the boulder is particularly relevant to Haze because of her preaching for the Christless Church and her sexual involvement with Leora Watts. Haze's car stops and he is forced to look at two words at the bottom of the sign that say, in smaller letters, "Jesus saves." Haze angrily pronounces, "I don't have to run from anything because I don't believe in anything" (72). who questions him, it is clear that Haze's words are actually directed at himself – and indicate that he is aware that he is, in fact, running from something: his acceptance of Jesus. While Wright transcends his surroundings, he also Haze ultimately achieves salvation when he finally surrenders to Jesus, but not before looking for salvation in the wrong places Haze's bond with his machine could be interpreted as deeply religious of the car, despite its obvious mechanical failures. For Haze, the car is a source of refuge and escape. The automobile, however, does not prove to be a lasting source of salvation because, as a material object, its ultimate destruction was inevitable. It is only when Haze ultimately establishes his faith in Jesus that he finds peace. This dramatic transformation was brought about by three key events (Caren 46). First, Haze violently destroys the mummy that Enoch gave birth to after seeing Sabbath cradling the doll as if it were his own daughter. According to Caren, this outburst stems from a deep-seated apprehension that prompted his harsh and violent response to the mummy's presence: "Haze recognizes that he has actually been presented with a new Jesus - a Jesus shrunk to the size to which the disbelief of Haze has arrived. would fit it; a Jesus who is a continuing sign of our mortality, who continues to live in a mummified eternity only to proclaim the impossibility of resurrection” (45). Haze from Solace Layfield, the prophet who imitates him for financial gain. Haze ceremoniously strips off the crook's clothes and then runs him over with his car. The murder was foreshadowed earlier when a member of the crowd asks if he and Layfield , the impostor preacher, were twins. He replies, "If you don't hunt him down and kill him, he'll hunt you down and kill you" (168). his car off the cliff, destroying it. before Haze can escape Taulkinham. Suddenly, the entity Haze had invested all his faith in andaddiction had simply vanished. Haze returns to town and immediately blinds himself, perhaps in repentance or to demonstrate his newfound faith in Jesus. The blindness brings him closer to Jesus as it erases any distractions that would hinder his faith. Furthermore, he gains stronger spiritual insight, allowing him to understand that he should run towards, not away from (O'Connor's conception of) the one true savior (Caron 50). Mrs. Flood, the landlady, notices a significant change in Haze's behavior: “To her, the blind man had the appearance of someone who saw something. His face had a peculiar look, as if he were moving forward towards something where he could just make out the distance” (218). Ironically, it is only after Haze blinds himself that he can truly see the path to safety. Although Wright and Haze find comfort in very different sources, their paths to finding themselves are similar. Both initially turn to some sort of organized religion: Haze attempts to organize her "Church without Christ" and gain public support and following. Wright also seeks solace as a member of an organized group by becoming an active participant and leader within the Communist Party. Impressed by their seemingly progressive ideals on matters of race, Wright says of the party's willingness to accept a black member: "How did these people, denying profit and home and God, overcome that obstacle that not even the churches of America had they managed to achieve? (321). Wright initially devotes all of his energy to party activities until he discovers that the party is not as morally upright and open-minded as it initially seemed. Wright is expelled from the party and finds that he is more successful operating independently and developing his own writing and ideology separately from the organized group. Likewise, Haze fails to discover his ideals within an organized group. He is unable to sustain support for his religious movement due to fraudulent competition from Hoover Shoats. Ultimately, like Wright, Haze discovers that there is no organized church that can show him the way to salvation: it is something he must discover for himself, independent of any organized group. Perhaps the most significant difference in the religious ideologies of O'Connor and Wright lies in their opposing perceptions of the role of religion within society. In Black Boy, Wright criticizes the overproliferation of Christianity among southern blacks, positing that religion provides them with “fantasies that distract them from addressing political and social problems in the real world” (Butler). Furthermore, Christianity promises believers salvation in the afterlife, leading some to passively endure suffering in this life assuming they will be rewarded in the future, rather than taking positive action to remedy their situations (Caron). , on the other hand, subtly argues in Wise Blood for a reacceptance of traditional Christian values ​​in a decidedly “post-Christian world” (Drake 184). Its protagonist, and those with whom he interacts, fail to find true salvation in modern sources such as sex or material possessions: Haze is only at peace when he finally dedicates himself to Jesus. While racial inequality is the central issue in the narrative of Wright and the theme of religion is merely peripheral, O'Connor's Wise Blood is all about religion, and racial inequality is never even mentioned. Timothy Caren criticizes this omission, which he identifies as reminiscent of “the white Southern response to racial inequality: Why worry about racial inequality in the here and now when everything will be solved in the afterlife?” ... O'Connor may have been forced to..