Why does hazel motes blind himself

There is something different about Hazel, and there always has been: he is fated for the spiritual life, set apart in some way from the mundane, animal world of Mrs. Flood and the citizens of Taulkinham. Hazel has now embraced this destiny and retreated further into this spiritualism, withdrawing from the world altogether. Flood feels a deep curiosity about his spiritual quest, combined with a comic desire to tease him away from it.

She knows that it goes unused, and thinks of what benefits a widow of his might accrue. He tells her that she can have it. Here the idea of marrying Hazel begins to enter Mrs. The episode with the wastebasket, which truly shocks her, cements the fact that Hazel is now living completely apart from the world, in a monk-like, ascetic way.

He is no longer looking to escape anything, but has resigned himself to suffering. She tells him that, personally, she is just as good with Jesus as without, and he interjects to say that she is better without. She takes this as a compliment, and tells him he should continue preaching, but he says he has no time. Later Mrs. Cleaning his room one day, she finds that his shoes are full of bits of rock and glass.

Hazel has now devoted his life to paying for his sins with self-inflicted pain and punishment. Flood becomes obsessed by Hazel , following him on his walks and badgering him about his health. For a while he stops eating at the boarding house, going to a nearby restaurant instead, and she is dismayed. Soon enough Hazel catches influenza, however, and is too weak to walk out. One day she walks in on him sleeping, and sees barbed wire wrapped around his chest, through his open shirt.

Flood is so shocked by this that she drops a tray of dishes. Flood becomes one more thing for Hazel to endure, one more trial, even as she tries to help and understand him and his dark religious purpose.

His self-harm is more serious than Mrs. He is moving beyond her, and beyond the world. He says that they are natural. Related Quotes with Explanations. At first Mrs. Flood had planned to marry Hazel and then commit him to the insane asylum, but now she plans to keep him. She has grown used to watching his face and trying to see what is really behind his eyes. As she speaks, Hazel begins to put on his clothes: his faded suit, the panama hat , and finally his rock-filled shoes.

Flood finishes her speech, saying that nobody ought to be without a place to be in this empty world. She says that she will give him a home. Hazel walks slowly towards her and then past her, into the hall and down the stairs. Flood is determined to keep him around so that she can unlock the secret motivations behind them. Her proposal is practical and gentle, but Hazel is clearly struck with a deep need to escape, as she is trying to draw him back out of himself and down into the world of other people, with their mundanity and animal nature.

Free Will vs. As Hazel leaves, Mrs. That night, as the icy wind blows, Mrs. Flood starts to weep, wanting to run out into the storm and find Hazel, to tell him that the two of them could go wherever he is going together. She is old, and has had a hard life, and deserves a friend. If she was going to be blind when she was dead, then who better to lead her than a blind man? At dawn she goes out looking for Hazel, and alerts the police when he is nowhere to be found.

Flood has been transformed by her exposure to the spiritually intense Hazel, and she is more aware of her loneliness and unhappiness than she ever has been before. She now recognizes that there might be something missing from her life — some secret realm or afterlife to which Hazel holds the key, something to stave off the fear of death that is beginning to gnaw at her.

Two days later a pair of young, fat, blond policemen find Hazel lying in a ditch. They tell him that he needs to come with them and pay his rent. Barely conscious, Hazel tells them he wants to go on where he is going. More in the line of nasty authority figures, these cruel and grotesque policemen find the weakened Hazel and accidentally kill him, in an act of violence that is tragically quiet and careless.

Hazel seems to want to die, however. He craves release from the world that treated him so poorly, and which is so unclean in his eyes. Flood has the policemen lay Hazel on her bed, and she tells his tranquil, empty face that he can stay rent-free now, or they can go on somewhere else, together. She leans closer, peering into his empty sockets, trying to decipher how she has been cheated. Closing her own eyes, she sees the pinpoint of light, far away. Finally Hazel seems to have found peace, in death.

Flood has been left behind, alone, and now convinced that there is some secret within Hazel that she cannot attain. Cite This Page. Home About Story Contact Help. Previous Chapter After two weeks, she returns, to the chagrin of Mrs. She tells Hazel that she'll have to charge them double if the "harpy" stays, and that Sabbath is only after his money. Hazel pays without commentary or emotion.

But Mrs. Flood has Sabbath remanded to a detention center. Flood finds Hazel doing inexplicable things like walking with rocks in his shoes and wrapping barbed wire around his chest, and at a certain point the strange wonder she feels towards him turns into a plan to marry him. However, when she approaches him with this idea, he escapes from the house. After a cold, rainy night, she reports him to the police as missing - and delinquent on his rent.

The police find him lying barely alive in a ditch, hit him in the head with a club, and then bring him to Mrs. Flood, who, thinking him alive, tells him that he does not have to pay rent anymore. She tries to peer into his eyes and understand him. Even after Hazel has put lime in his eyes, the story continues in its blindingly clear-sighted manner through the intact eyes of Mrs.

Flood, to whom we were introduced in the previous chapter, which ends: "What possible reason could a sane person have for wanting to not enjoy himself any more? She certainly couldn't say. In fact, Hazel has become what he once mistook Asa Hawks to be; that is, one who preaches through deed. We witness Mrs. Flood behaving towards Hazel in much the same way that Hazel behaved to Hawks: If she didn't keep her mind going on something else when he was near her, "she would find herself leaning forward, staring into his face as if she expected to see something she hadn't seen before" Although her logic generally follows along a very pecuniary bent, it is still very similar to Hazel's; for she has a very strong sense of self and longing to bring everything else into clear understanding: "She couldn't look at anything steadily without wanting it, and what provoked her most was the thought that there might be something valuable hidden near her, something she couldn't see" This personality that Mrs.

Flood and Hazel share may be contrasted with that of the myopic Enoch, who despite his so-called "ambition" is far more passive in wanting to be accepted by others and following the commands of his wise blood. Despite this similarity with Hazel, Mrs. Flood is blocked by her own strong sense of conventionality and normality, which stands between her and Hazel until the very end.

She cannot understand why he walks with rocks and glass in his shoes, and why he wraps his chest in barbed wire. We know that Hazel has done this before - to atone for spying on the peep show, he walked with rocks in his shoes until his feet bled. Of course, this self-inflicted punishment in childhood does not culminate in the desired effect, redemption, and instead becomes one of the motivating factors for Hazel to begin his anti-church later in life.

But now, after truly doing something amoral - murdering Solace Layfield , a crime that goes unpunished by the authorities - Hazel returns to extreme tests of faith. He blinds himself with lime, completing the act Asa Hawks could not bring himself to do, and wallows in self harm.

Can we then interpret that Hazel has rejected the tenets of his Church Without Christ and returned to the faith of his youth? Wise blood as to be these people's means of grace - they have no sacraments. The religion of the South is a do-it-yourself religion, something which I as a Catholic find painful and touching and grimly comic. It's full of unconscious pride that lands them in all sorts of ridiculous religious predicaments.