Wise Blood Research Paper

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The Solitude of Self-Sacrifice Solitude represents the commencement of redemption. In the novel Wise Blood and the short story “The Yellow Wallpaper,” the protagonists’ pursuit of freedom and redemption reveals the negative psychological effects that confinement, solitude, and denial can have on humanity. Though confinement appears as a common struggle for the narrator of “The Yellow Wallpaper,” Sabbath Lily Hawks, and Hazel Motes from Wise Blood, the last manages to free his spirit and sacrifice his sight for God, while the first loses her sanity and achieves nothing more than frightening her dear husband, John; similarly, Asa Hawks, Lily Hawks’ father, loses his sanity and flees town soon after being discovered as a sham. Although “The Yellow …show more content…

Soon after her arrival at the isolated estate which she learns to call home, the narrator of “The Yellow Wallpaper” is locked away in a room as a sacrifice on John’s part, while Hazel Motes from Wise Blood locks himself away in a room and blinds himself to sacrifice himself for his previous sins, and as a ritual of acceptance of Jesus. For Hazel, Jesus is not a loving savior; instead, Hazel sees Jesus as an obscured stranger who seeks to pull the former into a realm of deception and erroneousness. The grandson of a backwoods preacher, Hazel unconsciously resists inheriting his grandfather’s role of a man preaching to a small audience concerning the positive aspects of Christianity and faith in Jesus and God. Unfortunately for Hazel, his physical attire, particularly his cheap blue suit and black hat closely resemble that of a typical Christian preacher. This denial also resembles that of John, who appears oblivious to the fact that his wife possesses several attributes that could very well classify her as insane, such as the latter’s obsession with the complex yellow wallpaper that seems to welcome its viewers to a world of mystery and perpetuity. A visit to Leora Watts, a local prostitute of Taulkinham, ensues upon his arrival in the city

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