Flannery O'Connor's first novel, Wise Blood (published in 1952), is a particularly emotive novel. It follows Hazel Motes, a war veteran and atheist who vows to preach and spread his anti-religion to the world. In chapter 10, Hazel has a confrontation with Onnie Jay Holy, which he sets up as a ruse to mock and spite Hazel. Salt is added to Hazel's wound when a passerby mistakes them for twins. At the end of chapter 10, a disenchanted Hazel returns to find Sabbath Lily Hawks, daughter of preacher Asa Hawks, on his bed. Sabbath propositions and seduces Hazel.

In chapter 11, Enoch Emery, who is inexplicably attracted to Hazel and his religion, makes his way to Hazel's apartment. It was storming out, and "large, putty-colored drops began to splatter on the pavement and there was an ugly growl in the sky behind him." The way in which Flannery O'Connor describes the rain is reminiscent of blood. This foreshadows Enoch's altercation with a man in costume as a gorilla, whom he will kill.

When Enoch meets a circus gorilla, Gonga (touted as "Giant Jungle Monarch and a Great Star"), Enoch (who works as a zookeeper) is disabused to find that the gorilla is in fact a disgruntled man who tells him to "go to hell." He thereupon pursues and kills the man and steals his gorilla costume. This moment of anagnorisis for Enoch is paralleled by Hazel's discovery that Sabbath is not innocent and pure, nor is her father actually blind.