Wise Blood: Chapter 14 Summary & Analysis

This question—what would drive someone to blind themselves—stays with Mrs. Flood, because Hazel does indeed blind himself, and she is constantly reminded of this fact by his scars, since he refuses to wear dark glasses. He is a silent houseguest, but offers to pay extra to keep his room, since he knows the space. She accepts, still curious about the blind man. She knows that he receives a disability check from the government, and feels justified getting back any of the money she feels has been stolen from her as taxes. She feels like the blind Hazel has the “look of seeing something,” so that even though he is blind it always seems as though he is straining forward to see something distant.

The other boarders largely ignore Hazel now, although at first they had been afraid of him. When he blinded himself, Sabbath had run to everyone to tell them what happened. She left a few days later, saying that she had not counted on him being an “honest-to-Jesus blind man,” and that she missed her father, Asa. Two months later Sabbath returned, shouting and screaming. Mrs. Flood told Hazel he would have to pay double if she stayed, so he did. When Mrs. Flood warns him that Sabbath is only after his money, Hazel says that if she were, he would pay her to leave. The landlady arranges to have Sabbath put into a Welfare home.

Later, Mrs. Flood steams open the envelope containing Hazel’s government check, and raises his rent when she finds out how much is there. She starts to cook his meals for him as well, and to charge for board. She can’t shake the feeling that he is cheating her somehow. He must have had some plan when he blinded himself, so what does he know that she doesn’t? Mrs. Flood tries to find out more about Hazel, telling him that her people are all dead, and she supposes his are too. He says that yes, they are.

Mrs. Flood enjoys sitting on the porch with Hazel, although she cannot always tell if he knows she is there. She talks at length, but he rarely responds. If she forgets to stop herself she begins to stare into his damaged eyes, mouth open. “Anyone who saw her from the sidewalk would think she was being courted by a corpse.” She notes that he never eats much, and he doesn’t care what it is he eats. His cough deepens with time, and his limp worsens. Hazel spends half the day walking around in a five-block radius from the house, even in winter when he is sick. Mrs. Flood reflects that he might as well be “one of those monks” in a “monkery.” She still feels vaguely cheated, as she wants to understand everything.

Mrs. Flood reflects on what is inside Hazel’s head, and decides that it must be big enough to contain everything, the whole world and sky and planets, making what is outside seem tiny—but it is the opposite for her. Mrs. Flood has to imagine Hazel’s dark inner world as containing a pinprick of light, like the star on Christmas cards, and laughs when she imagines him going “backwards to Bethlehem.” She wants to find something to give him a connection to the real world, and suggests that he take up the guitar, creating a vision of the two of them sitting on the porch while he strums. He never takes her suggestion.

Mrs. Flood wonders what happens with the extra third of Hazel’s benefit check. She knows that it goes unused, and thinks of what benefits a widow of his might accrue. One day she finds four dollars and some change in his wastebasket, and when she asks him why they’re there, he says they were left over. She is shocked by this waste, asking why he doesn’t at least give it away. He tells her that she can have it.

Mrs. Flood decides, officially, to marry Hazel, so that he is under the control of “a sensible person.” In order to seduce him, she tries to take an interest in what matters to him: preaching. She asks why he doesn’t preach anymore, suggesting that a seeing-eye dog would certainly draw a crowd. 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. Flood discovers what is taking Hazel’s time, and why he limps. Cleaning his room one day, she finds that his shoes are full of bits of rock and glass. Confused, she asks him why he walks on rocks, and he responds, harshly, “to pay.” When she asks “for what,” Hazel says it doesn’t make any difference, and to mind her own business, because she “can’t see.” Mrs. Flood asks him whether he thinks that when you’re dead, you’re blind, and Hazel says that he hopes so, because “if there’s no bottom in your eyes, they hold more.”

Mrs. Flood becomes obsessed by Hazel, following him on his walks and badgering him about his health. He didn’t seem to notice her, or else swats at her voice as if it were a mosquito. 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. Mrs. Flood is so shocked by this that she drops a tray of dishes.

Mrs. Flood wakes Hazel and asks why he does these “unnatural” things. He says that they are natural. She says that it’s something people have quit doing, “like boiling in oil or being a saint.” He says that “they ain’t quit doing it as long as I’m doing it,” and that he does it because he is “not clean.” She agrees, pointing out that he has bloodied his shirt and the sheets, but he says it’s “not that kind of clean.” Mrs. Flood mutters that there is “only one kind of clean,” and begins to sweep up the broken dishes. She tells Hazel that he must have been lying about not believing in Jesus, that she wouldn’t be surprised if he were some kind of agent of the pope.

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. One day, the coldest of that winter, she goes to his room and makes the proposition, gradually suggesting that it would be easier for them both if she didn’t have to climb the stairs up to his room, and if he moved in with her. As she speaks, Hazel begins to put on his clothes: his faded suit, the panama hat, and finally his rock-filled shoes. Mrs. 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.

As Hazel leaves, Mrs. Flood tells him that there’s no other place for him to go. She’s sure he will return. 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.

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. The fatter cop hits him over the head with his new billy club so that he won’t be any trouble. Hazel dies in the back of the squad car, but the policemen don’t notice, and they deliver his corpse to Mrs. Flood.

Mrs. 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. Her eyes still shut, she “stares” into Hazel’s eyes, and watches as he moves farther and farther away, until he becomes the pinpoint of light.