Theme Of Revelation By Flannery O Connor

Flannery O’Connor’s short story, “Revelation,” explores the harsh epiphany of a southern woman named Ruby Turpin. It seems appropriate that O’Connor created a story that was centered around a life-changing realization given the fact that O’Connor’s life stopped abruptly due to lupus shortly before she published “Revelation.” Nevertheless, her unfortunate condition did not stop O’Connor’s ability to employ rhetorics in the story which significantly supports the theme of judgement, religion, and racism. O’Connor’s exceptional capability to appeal to audience makes “Revelation” a compelling yet realistic story to read.

Unsurprisingly, the theme of revelation is prominent in the story. In order to strengthen this theme, O’Connor builds up Mrs.

She achieves this through specific word choice. For example, throughout the story, Mrs. Turpin refers to people with specific words such as “ugly,” “white-trashy,” and “pleasant” (O’Connor 455). In fact, one of Mrs. Turpin’s first perception about people in the doctor’s waiting room was a young girl reading a book. It is evident that Mrs. Turpin disliked the girl because she described her as, “The poor girl’s face was blue with acne and Mrs Turpin thought how pitiful it was to have a face like that at that age” (O’Connor 453). This provokes a feeling of distaste from the audience because Mrs. Turpin does not even know the girl, but is quick to use a word such as “pitiful” to describe the girl’s situation. The word choice reveals how Mrs. Turpin perceives other people negatively in such a short period of time. Additionally, Mrs. Turpin’s bitter feelings for “white-trashy” people is evident throughout the story. She describes a lady, “She had on yellow sweat shirt and wine-colored slacks, both gritty looking, and the rims of her lips were stained with snuff” (O’Connor 454). Regarding this woman, Mrs Turpin remarks, “Worse than niggers any day.” (O’Connor 454). This evokes a feeling of bitterness because Mrs. Turpin concludes that the lady is automatically white trash solely because of the lady’s drabby appearance. Again, Mrs. Turpin constructs a hasty assumption based

While having a normal conversation, Mrs. Turpin casually mentions, “‘It's good weather for cotton if you can get the niggers to pick it,’" (O’Connor 455). This offhand comment is vulgar because she dehumanizes black people by dismissing them as slaves and nothing else. However, this negative perception towards black people is deemed as appropriate in the south. Clearly, this type of behavior is not unusual as Mrs. Turpin is not the only one that holds an unfavorable impression against blacks. The white-trash lady remarks, "’Two thangs I ain't going to do: love no niggers or scoot down no hog with no hose’” (O’Connor 456). Again, this appeals to the reader’s logic because this kind of reasoning would certainly exist in the south. In this instance, the white-trash lady compares black people to hogs and cruelly places them in the same category. Nevertheless, Mrs. Turpin contradicts her previous act by agreeing that, “‘There’s a heap of things worse than a nigger,’” (O’Connor 457). It makes sense that O’Connor portrays Mrs. Turpin in a hypocritical way because it exaggerates her racist behavior. In fact, Mrs. Turpin remarks bluntly, “‘...but you got to love em if you want em to work for you’” (O’Connor 456). In today’s society, reading this short story will no doubt evoke feelings of discomfort amongst its readers. However, since the story’s publication is 1964, Mrs. Turpin and