The Grandmother and Ruby Turpin: The True Misfits
Flannery O’Connor (1925-1964), a Southern Gothic author from Savannah, Georgia, wrote stories that make lasting impressions on her readers. Best known for her short-stories, O’Connor’s works often present situations “in which the voices of displaced persons affirm the grace of God in the grotesqueries of the world” ("Flannery O'Connor's "A Good Man” 1). Her characters wrestle with the difficult issues of morals and spirituality. O’Connor’s main female characters, the grandmother in “A Good Man is Hard to Find”, and Ruby Turpin in “Revelation”, have some striking similarities and dramatic differences. Both have the major character flaws of prejudice and racism. These flaws are made obvious to the reader, but these
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‘ladies’ refuse to recognize their own faults. The grandmother and Ruby Turpin only begin to realize their flaws as the result of violent epiphanies, but only one of them appears to experience a true change of heart afterwards. Southern ladies of O’Conner’s day lived by a code of etiquette and morals that set them apart from others. Ladies were expected to take pride in their appearance, to have high morals, to think well of themselves and others, and also to be sincere and thoughtful of others (“How to Be a Lady" 1). Being considered a lady was one of the highest compliments a Southern woman could achieve in her lifetime (cite). The women in “A Good Man is Hard to Find” and “Revelation” may have look like ladies but their true natures are revealed when they open their mouths. The unnamed grandmother in “A Good Man is Hard to Find” gets the appearance and pride part right, but she does not follow through on the other requirements. She grudgingly accompanies her son and his family on a trip to Florida and makes them miserable with her non-stop talking. Seated between both grandchildren on the back seat of the car, O’Connor describes the grandmother as being overdressed for the occasion, wearing white gloves, a dress, and a hat so that “in case of an accident, anyone seeing her lying dead in the highway would know at once that she was a lady” (Crane 230). She may dress like a lady, but she does not behave like one. She is proud, stubborn, manipulative, and prejudiced toward those who do not meet her standards. Her lies not only cause the family to wreck the car, but ultimately they cause death at the hand of a criminal named The Misfit who escaped from the Federal Penitentiary. Because the grandmother recognizes The Misfit, he and his accomplices murder her son, daughter-in-law, and three grandchildren while she pleads for her own life rather than that of her family. She appeals to his goodness, his belief in Jesus and finally in desperation begs, “You’ve got good blood! I know you wouldn’t shoot a lady! I know you come from nice people! Pray! Jesus, you ought not shoot a lady” (Crane 244). The grandmother reaches out to The Misfit just before her death as she appeals to his humanity but he shoots the grandmother and tells his accomplices to throw her body with the others. As the story ends The Misfit sums up his thoughts about the grandmother when he says, “She would have been a good woman if there had been somebody to shoot her every minute of her life” (Crane 245). The grandmother may have recognize flaws, but the is nothing to indicate that she has a true change of heart. The criminals leave the grandmother and her family’s dead corpses lying on the lonely roadside where her lies and manipulation led them. Ruby Turpin from “Revelation” also presents herself as a lady.
She classifies people into categories of white trash, Negros, and people like herself. She is full of self-satisfaction and prejudice, even though she claims to be Christian. Ruby and her husband, Claud, arrive at the local doctor’s waiting room to find it crowded with all types of people. She reveals her true nature during a conversation with a well-dressed lady while considering herself better than the white-trash family, a Negro delivery boy, and the fat girl reading a book on Human Development. The girl, who is home from college, listens to Turpin’s continuous chatter about civil rights her self-righteousness until she snaps and throws the book she is reading into Mrs. Turpin’s face. She then violently chokes her. After the attack, Mrs. Turpin seeks answers, but the girl calls her a warthog and tells her to go to hell. This causes Turpin to question herself. How can she be a bad person when she shows kindness to Negros and volunteers at her church. She turns to question God and He answers her by sending a vision that reveals her faulty thinking. In this vision, Turpin sees white trash and Negros marching into heaven
on: A vast swinging bridge extending upward from the earth through a field of living fire. Upon it a vast horde of souls were tumbling toward heaven. There were 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 of who, like herself and Claude, had always had a little of everything and the given wit to use it right. They were marching behind the others with great dignity, accountable as they had always been for good order and respectable behavior. (O’Connor 34-35) Turpin is shocked to discover that God loves white-trash and Negros and that they lead the march into heaven ahead of the very people she believed to be God’s chosen. This epiphany gives Mrs. Turpin a revelation that shakes her faulty world view and causes a change of heart. The grandmother and Ruby Turpin have similarities. They are both white Southern females who attempt to pass themselves off as ladies, but they are actually posers blinded by their own pride and prejudices. O’Connor exposes these self-absorbed Southern Belles for their hypocrisy through acts of violence. O’Connor leaves it to the reader to decide whether the epiphanies truly cause a change of heart. Perhaps the grandmother and Ruby Turpin are the true misfits of these stories.
Mrs. Turpin in Flannery O’Connor’s short story Revelation, is a prejudice and judgmental woman who spends most of her life prying in the lives of everyone around her. She looks at people not for who they are, but for their race or social standing. In fact, Mrs. Turpin is concerned with race and status so much that it seems to take over her life. Although she seems to disapprove of people of different race or social class, Mrs. Turpin seems to be content and appreciative with her own life. It is not until Mrs. Turpin’s Revelation that she discovers that her ways of life are no better then those she looks down upon and they will not assure her a place in Heaven.
“’She would of been a good women, ‘The Misfit said, ‘if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life’”(6). Flannery O’Connor grew up in southern Georgia where she was raised in a prominent Roman Catholic family. O’Connor endured hard times in life when her father died of lupus erythematous, which she was diagnosed with later in life. These life events influence her writing greatly. She uses her religion and gothic horror in her writings to relay a message to people that may be on the wrong path, in an attempt to change it. The author wrote during the late 1940’s and early 1950’s. Flannery O’Connor wrote “Everything That Rises Must Converge” and “A Good Man Is Hard To Find”.
O’Connor powerfully made the reader realize that having an epiphany opens up our mind to a clearer insight, and this was seen with the grandmother in “A Good Man is Hard to Find” and Mrs. Turpin in “Revelation.” Nonetheless, O’Connor also created characters that obtained a certain type of violence deep within their personality to show the importance of real life experiences within our society. These two short stories show a great amount of emotion and life lessons towards the reader, and O’Connor successfully conveyed her point while using her powerful Southern gothic writing technique.
...than facing her own internal demons. The grandmother, however, made a gesture of love before her untimely death. The grandmother’s life transformed the instant that she experienced her revelation with the Misfit. Mrs. Turpin, however, has a lot of time to contemplate the revelation that she receives when Mary Grace literally throws the book, coincidentally entitled Human Development, at her. Mrs. Turpin is alive when she receives her revelation but the grandmother is killed by the time she experienced her revelation. Most significantly, both women only sought spiritual guidance when it was convenient, instead of daily. They also started to question their roles with their higher powers when they could not manipulate a situation. Overall, both protagonists share numerous commonalities, but their differences are what made their transformations more credible to readers.
Flannery O’Connor’s use of the protagonist in the three stories “Everything That Rises Must Converge”, “A Good Man is Hard to Find”, and “Revelation” are all expressed through characters that do not fit the typical protagonist mold. As you will see the three protagonists have many similarities. Mrs. Turpin and Julian’s mothers similarities are out in the open and easy to recognize. On the other hand the grandmother’s similarities are more subdued, but she does share them with the other women.
A story without style is like a man without personality: useless and boring. However, Flannery O’Connor incorporates various different styles in her narratives. Dark humor, irony, and symbolism are perhaps the utmost powerful and common styles in her writing. From “Revelation” and “Good Country People” to “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” all of O’Connor’s stories consist of different styles in writing.
Religion is a pervasive theme in most of the literary works of the late Georgia writer Flannery O'Connor. Four of her short stories in particular deal with the relationship between Christianity and society in the Southern Bible Belt: "A Good Man Is Hard to Find," "The River," "Good Country People," and "Revelation." Louis D. Rubin, Jr. believes that the mixture of "the primitive fundamentalism of her region, [and] the Roman Catholicism of her faith . . ." makes her religious fiction both well-refined and entertaining (70-71). O'Connor's stories give a grotesque and often stark vision of the clash between traditional Southern Christian values and the ever-changing social scene of the twentieth century. Three of the main religious ingredients that lend to this effect are the presence of divine meanings, revelations of God, and the struggle between the powers of Satan and God.
Flannery O’Connor believed in the power of religion to give new purpose to life. She saw the fall of the old world, felt the force and presence of God, and her allegorical fictions often portray characters who discover themselves transforming to the Catholic mind. Though her literature does not preach, she uses subtle, thematic undertones and it is apparent that as her characters struggle through violence and pain, divine grace is thrown at them. In her story “Revelation,” the protagonist, Mrs. Turpin, acts sanctimoniously, but ironically the virtue that gives her eminence is what brings about her downfall. Mrs. Turpin’s veneer of so called good behavior fails to fill the void that would bring her to heaven. Grace hits her with force and their illusions, causing a traumatic collapse exposing the emptiness of her philosophy. As Flannery O’Connor said, “In Good Fiction, certain of the details will tend to accumulate meaning from the action of the story itself, and when this happens they become symbolic in the way they work.” (487). The significance is not in the plot or the actual events, but rather the meaning is between the lines.
Flannery O’Connor, undoubtedly one of the most well-read authors of the early 20th Century, had many strong themes deeply embedded within all her writings. Two of her most prominent and poignant themes were Christianity and racism. By analyzing, “A Good Man is Hard to Find” and “Everything that Rises Must Converge,” these two themes jump out at the reader. Growing up in the mid-1920’s in Georgia was a huge influence on O’Connor. Less than a decade before her birth, Georgia was much different than it was at her birth. Slaves labored tirelessly on their master’s plantations and were indeed a facet of everyday life. However, as the Civil War ended and Reconstruction began, slaves were not easily assimilated into Southern culture. Thus, O’Connor grew up in a highly racist area that mourned the fact that slaves were now to be treated as “equals.” In her everyday life in Georgia, O’Connor encountered countless citizens who were not shy in expressing their discontent toward the black race. This indeed was a guiding influence and inspiration in her fiction writing. The other guiding influence in her life that became a major theme in her writing was religion. Flannery O'Connor was born in Savannah, Georgia, the only child of a Catholic family. The region was part of the 'Christ-haunted' Bible belt of the Southern States. The spiritual heritage of the region profoundly shaped O'Connor's writing as described in her essay "The Catholic Novelist in the Protestant South" (1969). Many of her 32 short stories are inundated with Christ-like allusions and other references to her faith.
A common aspect of Flannery O’Connor’s literary works is her use of heavily flawed characters. O’Connor’s characters often exhibit gothic and incongruous characteristics. O’Connor’s short story, “Good Country People,” is no exception to her traditional writing style with characters such as Hulga Hopewell, Mrs. Hopewell, Mrs. Freeman, and Manley Pointer. O’Connor uses gothic characterization and symbolism to produce a great short story about a few ruthless country people.
Mary Flannery O'Connor is one of the most preeminent and more unique short story authors in American Literature (O'Connor 1). While growing up she lived in the Bible-belt South during the post World War II era of the United States. O'Connor was part of a strict Roman Catholic family, but she depicts her characters as Fundamentalist Protestants. Her characters are also severely spiritually or physically disturbed and have a tendancy to be violent, arrogant or overly stupid. (Garraty 582) She mixes in her works a full-fledged gothic eeriness with an authentic feeling for the powers of grace and redemption. O'Connor's substantial literary reputation is based upon her two novels and her short stories collected in Everything That Rises Must Converge (1965), A Good Man is Hard to Find (1955), and The Complete Short Stories of Flannery O'Connor. Despite the fact that her unique style of writing has caused many judgments and rumors about her, O'Connor has received many awards and honors throughout her entire life.
O’Connor sets a malicious tone for the first half of the story, and later brings a more optimistic manner into play. As Mrs. Turpin continued to rant about white trash, blacks, and ugly people taking up space in the world, she continues to notices an individual in the waiting room, as well as a particular glare that seemed to inhabit the atmosphere of the room. In tremor, Mary Grace springs towards attacking Mrs. Turpin screaming, “Go back to hell where you came from, you old wart hog” (O’Connor 272). She began to question, why her? Was she really a wart hog from hell? Slowly but surely the gears began to turn as she began to realize what the reasoning behind the day’s events were all about. The waiting room symbolized purgatory, a place where souls go to be purified previous to entering into heaven. Mary Grace, playing a key role in purgatory, symbolized the saving grace, opening Mrs. Turpin’s eyes to the way she had been living her entire life. She goes on to recollect a vision she had seen after the attack, claiming, “They were marching behind the others with great dignity, accountable as they had been for good order and common sense and respectable behavior. They alone were the key” (O’Connor 278). She envisions blacks, white, rich, and
Flannery O’Connor’s Catholic faith is shown heavily in her writing’s, but yet most of her characters are Protestant. Protestants fall under Western churches, and follow the principle of Reformation. Flannery wants her characters to suffer, to feel anguish and find redemption. While Flannery O’Connor has written many complex texts with different themes, her faith is always the fueling force behind her creativity. Contrary to popular belief, O’Connor’s notions have only widened her points of view in her writings. O’Connor uses faith in her work to show the readers spirituality and grace.
Flannery O’Connor is a Southern author that writes about very violent and strange stories. O’Connor establishes a much need style of writing that capture reader feeling and emotions. This paper will identify some of the author’s hidden emotion and state of imagination to keep the reader on edge. This story is clearly more about the grandmother start from the beginning to end expressing her point of view. The grandmothers discuss her role and religious experience when she meets the Misfits. I think all critics will focus on the grandmother to identify all problems and to have a religious connection with God.
The main recurring theme in Flannery O’Connor’s stories is the use of violence towards characters in order to give them an eye-opening moment in which they finally realize their true self in relation to the rest of society and openly accept insight into how they should act or think. This theme of violence can clearly be seen in three works by Flannery O’Connor: A Good Man is Hard to Find, Good Country People, and Everything That Rises Must Converge.