Analysis Of Revelation By Flannery O Connor

In Flannery O'Connor’s, “Revelation,” she provides the readers a taste of the South during Jim Crow Laws. Blacks and whites were segregated due to skin color and social status. And those of color were always considered inferior to white Southerners. However, that doesn’t mean that whites were only prejudice to blacks or vice versa. People were biased to those of the same skin color as well – mainly because of their social status or background.
O’Connor’s choice of characters was definitely what someone could expect to see if traveling to the south prior to the 1950’s. Mrs. Turpin, is described to be of the middle-class, she also tends to be religious, but her actions say otherwise. She labels those who she feels are inferior to her during a

visit at the doctor’s office. While waiting, she begins to question herself and ask the lord… who she would’ve been if she would’ve had the choice? Mrs. Turpin very much showcased the level of discrimination that existed during those times. She refers to a stylish lady as well-dressed and labels an overweight teenage girl with acne, named Mary Grace, as ugly. She also proved to be biased against those of the same skin color as hers; calling another woman white-trashy based solely on her outfit and the way she speaks. She states, “exactly what you would have expected her to have on.” (O’Connor) As if she already knows when someone is white-trash. Mrs. Turpin tends to degrade blacks all throughout the story by calling them niggers. She even gives a rather ‘tiny’ rude compliment when describing the trashy-woman, “Her dirty yellow hair was tied behind with a little piece of red paper ribbon. Worse than niggers any day.” (O’Connor) Implying that even the blacks were somewhat upper class to uneducated whites. She clearly didn’t like uneducated folks nor would she affiliate herself with someone of that status.
Although she mainly labels those around her in her head, it doesn’t appear that Mrs.

Turpin has much of a filter. When describing the office clock, she could really care less for what the white-trashy woman had to say. It bothered her that she was being interrupted while talking to the stylish woman “No, I already have a nice clock," Mrs. Turpin said. Once somebody like her got a leg in the conversation, she would be all over it.” Her demeanor throughout the story was holier than thou, and that seemed to bother Mary Grace causing a slight conflict between the two. Throughout the story, the girl would smirk at Mrs. Turpin and give her ugly looks, “She gave the girl a friendly smile, but the girl only scowled the harder.” (O’Connor)
O’Connor would go on and unexpectedly provide the readers with the major conflict after a brief discussion over manners between the stylish lady and Mrs. Turpin. Mary Grace would attack Mrs. Turpin by throwing the book that she was reading right over Mrs. Turpin’s left eye! It would be in this scene that would cause Mrs. Turpin to soon have a revelation; as if Mary Grace knocked her into her senses. “The girl's eyes stopped rolling and focused on her. They seemed a much lighter blue than before, as if a door that had been tightly closed behind them was now open to admit light and air.”

(O’Connor)
After an afternoon of washing her hogs; upset about the actions of Mary Grace, Mrs. Turpin would have a vision; realizing that her way of living has been wrong.
“There were whole companies of white trash, clean for the first time in their lives, and bands of black niggers in white robes, and battalions of freaks and lunatics shouting and clapping and leaping like frogs. And bringing up the end of the procession was a tribe of people whom she recognized at once as those who, like herself and Claud, had always had a little of everything and the God-given wit to use it right.” (O’Connor)