"Where the blind don't see and the lame don't walk": deconstructing disability in Flannery O'Connor's 'Wise blood, ' 'Good country people, ' and 'The lame shall enter first'

Sherry Michelle Lohmeyer
Wed, 22 Apr 2026 17:51:24 PDT

Flannery O'Connor's Wise Blood, 'Good Country People, ' and 'The Lame Shall Enter First' deconstruct the hierarchical opposites able-bodied/disabled by revealing interdependence and similarity between the two terms. O'Connor's texts question the nature of disability and ability by looking at ways that the disabled experience freedom and confinement. O'Connor undercuts the positive connotations of freedom by suggesting that a character needs to experience confinement in order to fully experience freedom. The reversal occurs because of two reasons: first, O'Connor's world is crafted anagogically, which means the characters and actions of each story have physical and spiritual significance, and second, her world is guided by a religious paradox that suggests a character is spiritually enabled by what he is unable to do, or that God's 'ability'-his omnipotence-supplements a character's inability.