Character Parallels in O'Connor

If there is one thing that I’ve noticed about Flannery O’Connor through reading Wise Blood, it’s that she does a great job of paralleling characters in her novels. Honestly, I’m not sure if it is intentional, but it seems to be at least.

Consider the two female characters that in a way bookend the novel. At the beginning of the novel, Mrs. Wally Bee Hitchcock is portrayed as a southerner of the old-school that doesn’t quite seem to be in tune with reality. Now compare Mrs. Hitchcock to Hazel’s landlady at the end of the novel who when met with the fact that Hazel is punishing himself, exclaims that no one does that these days and insists to him that there is only one kind of clean.

Then there is the cab driver in the second chapter of Wise Blood. Though a minor character in the story, he does point out something interesting about Hazel. When Hazel asserts that his hat does not mean that he is a preacher, the cab driver quickly retorts that it’s not so much the hat but the look in his face. When we flash forward towards the end of the novel, we see Hazel’s dialogue with the patrolman. When Hazel asks why he pulled him over, the only reason he gives is that he doesn’t like his face. Maybe this is a stretch, but I think O’Connor is saying something with these comments about Hazel’s face. It makes me wonder if the patrolman saw the same thing that the cab driver saw or if by that point in the novel something in Haze’s face had changed so that he wasn’t quite the preacher he was in the middle.

The more I think about it, the more I think that some sort of connection can be drawn between Mrs. Leora Watts and Lily Sabbath. Perhaps I’m reading too much into this relationship as well, but it is interesting that Hazel loses his virginity to Mrs. Watts and Lily desires to lose her virginity to Hazel.