Contribution to Book
Quixotism and Modernism: The Conversion of Hazel Motes
Reading Flannery O'Connor in Spain: From Andalusia to Andalucía
(2020)
Abstract
O’Connor scholars have long debated about the nature of the conversion of Hazel Motes, the protagonist in Flannery O’Connor’s first novel, Wise Blood. This chapter enters that debate by by examining Hazel’s conversion in the light of his peculiar quixotism; his stunted, incomplete conversion thereby comes into greater clarity. For this argument, I dialogue with philosopher Charles Taylor’s A Secular Age. In so doing, I argue that Hazel’s quixotism is a distinctly modern variety, for it exalts autonomy and insists that the self should construct its own meaning and morality apart from the influence of a religious past. In the end, Hazel’s conversion is a stunted one, for he continues to operate with the anthropology of modernism: that is, he desires to remain an autonomous individual not responsible for, or dependent upon, others beyond the barest necessary requirements.
Keywords
- Flannery O'Connor,
- Charles Taylor,
- Wise Blood
Disciplines
Publication Date
2020
Editor
Mark Bosco and Beatriz Valverde
Publisher
The Catholic University of America Press
ISBN
9780813233178
Citation Information
Brent Little. "Quixotism and Modernism: The Conversion of Hazel Motes" Reading Flannery O'Connor in Spain: From Andalusia to Andalucía (2020) Available at: http://works.bepress.com/brent-little/21/