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Hazel’s Car
Coffins recur throughout the novel, first in a series of flashbacks that Hazel has of the funerals of his various family members. He is always convinced that they will escape just before the lid can be closed, and they never do. Coffins represent the ultimate trap—death—and the collapse of Hazel’s family.
Coffins Quotes in Wise Blood
The Wise Blood quotes below all refer to the symbol of Coffins. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter 1
Quotes
In his half-sleep he thought where he was lying was like a coffin. The first coffin he had seen with someone in it was his grandfather’s. They had left it propped open with a stick of kindling the night it had sat in the house with the old man in it, and Hazel had watched from a distance, thinking: he ain’t going to let them shut it on him; when the time comes, his elbow is going to shoot into the crack. His grandfather had been a circuit preacher, a waspish old man who had ridden over three counties with Jesus hidden in his head like a stinger. When it was time to bury him, they shut the top of his box down and he didn’t make a move.
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Chapter 9
Quotes
Haze stayed in his car about an hour and had a bad experience in it: he dreamed he was not dead but only buried. He was not waiting on the Judgment because there was no Judgment, he was waiting on nothing. Various eyes looked through the back oval window at his situation, some with considerable reverence, like the boy from the zoo, and some only to see what they could see… Then a woman with two little boys on either side of her stopped and looked in, grinning. After a second, she pushed the boys out of view and indicated that she would climb in and keep him company for a while, but she couldn’t get through the glass and finally she went off.
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Coffins Symbol Timeline in Wise Blood
The timeline below shows where the symbol Coffins appears in Wise Blood. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 1
...he wishes the darkness were absolute. Half asleep, he feels like he is in a coffin. Hazel remembers the first coffin he ever saw, which contained his grandfather, a fierce country...
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...chifforobe is guarded. He remembers her worried face, glimpsing it through the crack in her coffin as they shut it on her when he was sixteen. As with his father, grandfather,...
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Chapter 3
...this tent. Once inside, Hazel climbed up on a bench to peer over into a coffin-like box, where a naked woman was writhing. He then heard his father’s voice and fled,...
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Chapter 5
...Hazel stealthily forward into a second hall, and then to a glass case like a coffin, where he stops with his neck thrust out and hands clasped together. Hazel looks and...
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...from Hazel. She grins, and her reflection merges with Hazel’s in the glass of the coffin case. When Hazel sees her he starts, and a noise escapes from his mouth. Enoch...
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