Obadiah Elihu Parker's Wise Blood

Obadiah Elihu Parker attempted to find the mysterious something that would bring him contentment, fulfillment, and meaning. His search had led him to marry a religious woman and to tattoo his body. The search was only to end, however, when he turned back. He had to turn back in the pages of the tattoo book, back to his own unmarked back, and back to the destiny that had been a part of him since the day he was christened in his mother’s Methodist church. He never realized that the fulfillment he hunted for was actually hunting him; the One he pursued unwittingly was at the same time pursuing him purposefully.
At the bar in which Parker stopped, a little man with a cigar butt in his mouth mocks him by saying, “O.E.’s got religion and is witnessing for Jesus” (O’Connor, “Parker” 671). The irony here is that the man they knew as “O. E.” indeed “got religion” and “is witnessing for Jesus.” The tattoo of Christ is his “testimony” to the new …show more content…
E. Parker spent his running toward something. At the conclusion of their stories, both men have been caught: Hazel by that which pursued him without him knowing it and Parker by that which he pursued without knowing it. When Parker returns home to show Sarah Ruth the new tattoo, she refuses to admit him to their home and asks his identity. He turns around “as if he expected someone behind him to give him the answer” (O’Connor, “Parker” 673). Ironically, it is the one behind him, the one who is tattooed on his back, and the one who had been in pursuit of him his entire life that is the answer to the question of who Parker is. The old answer (“O. E.”) is no longer sufficient or accurate; he is now Obadiah, the servant of the Lord. O. E. had “been put to death on the cross with Christ” and now Christ lives in and on Obadiah (Galatians 2:20 BBE). Sarah Ruth rejects her moment of grace and turns the new Parker and Christ, represented by the new tattoo,