Abstract
The essay is an attempt to elucidate the religious themes and language of O'Connor's two novels in a way that secular readers might find enlightening. Through the motifs of vision (in Wise Blood) and rationality (in The Violent Bear It Away), the novels are read as playing out a philosophical conflict centring on different readings of the word ‘mystery’, that is to say, mystery as a not‐yet‐established fact as opposed to mystery as an experience, something to be lived rather than known. This conflict is examined under the headings of ‘ego’ versus ‘soul’, and ‘imaginative’ versus ‘factual’ truth, using E. M. Cioran's phrase, ‘the void of lucidity’ as a touchstone. The essay concludes that religious and artistic aspirations are different expressions of the same ineffable impulse.
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