Hypocrisy In Flannery O 'Connor's Wise Blood'

Hypocrisy, the practice of claiming to have moral standards or beliefs to which one's own behaviour does not conform. Asa hawks displays this well throughout Flannery O’Connor’s Wise Blood, and so does the grandmother from “A Good Man Is Hard To Find”. We meet Asa in the beginning of the book who claims to be “blind” and is a preacher with a bastard daughter named Lily Sabbath. The Grandmother from “A Good Man Is Hard To Find” sees herself as a very superior character. She views herself as a very strong woman and believes that her morals a very strong as well, but what she does not understand is that her self-centredness causes her to be a hypocrite and the end result was her death. These two characters are similar through them being hypocrites,

Asa Hawks is a fraudulent preacher who claims he is to blind himself in front of a crowd at a revival regarding his belief that Christ did redeem him and to show his this; he is to pour lime into his eyes. Asa Hawks is the character that talks the talk but does not walk the walk. “The headline on the clipping said, EVANGELIST PROMISES TO BLIND SELF. The rest of it [says] that Asa Hawks, an evangelist of the Free Church of Christ, had promised to blind himself to justify his belief that Christ Jesus [has] redeemed him…The other clipping was one that [says], EVANGELIST’S NERVE FAILS.” (Wise Blood, 65 iBooks) Asa Hawks hides his true intention with his mouth, he controls what he says, he says the right things at appropriate times, meaning, he only shows Hazel the newspaper clipping that says he is to blind himself, not the one where it says he failed to do so. Asa Hawks hides his eyes behind a pair of sunglasses to mask them, which if it opens, it would reveal his true identity and prove his

Her hypocritical actions are not only the cause of her own death at the hands of the Misfit but are also the cause of her family’s death. "Jesus!" the old lady cried. "You've got good blood! I know you wouldn't shoot a lady! I know you come from nice people! Pray! Jesus, you ought not to shoot a lady. I'll give you all the money I've got!” (“A Good Man Is Hard To Find”, 127) Even at her last moments, the grandmother still does not understand that just because she is woman, it does not mean that the Misfit will spare her life. The reason main reason for her death is because she decided to blurt out the name Misfit, which also would cost the life of her entire family. From the start of the story she makes decisions that she knows very well she should not make. Starting with her cat, had the grandmother not brought the cat along with her, this accident would not have taken place. Another time was when she lied when she really was lost. Another action that causes the grandmother to go through and unfortunate ending is when she claims that she would never allow for her children to go where a criminal like the misfit is on the loose, yet when they are confronted by the misfit she never once said for him spare her children or her family. The grandmother is hypocritical because claims to be a Christian, but the way she acts differs from the way Christian are supposed live. Christians are supposed to lookout