Ariana Zhang

Two-Faced Sins: An Analysis of Flannery O’Connor’s “Revelation”

Greenhill School

Faculty sponsor: Joel Garza

Two-Faced Sins: An Analysis of Flannery O’Connor’s “Revelation”

It is often perceived that the act of being a good Christian excludes the ability to commit sin; however, in truth, the two are not mutually exclusive. In reality, all who are good can also have a sinful and even evil side. The same idea goes for those who seem malicious and meaning to cause harm; even those ill-natured people have an inherently good part of their soul as well. In Flannery O’Connor’s “Revelation”, the conversations that Ruby Turpin has with other female characters in the story reveals the difference between her pleasant Christian exterior and her judgmental and prideful inner self.

Mrs. Turpin’s interactions with the “stylish woman” in the waiting room show that Ruby Turpin considers herself to be one of the better people that God put on this earth, frequently putting herself above others and harshly judging others by her own standards. The only character in the story who Mrs. Turpin does not talk down to or have demeaning thoughts about is this pleasant woman in the waiting room at the doctor’s office. This woman seems to be the only other person in O’Connor’s “Revelation” who Mrs. Turpin perceives as an equal; even her interactions with her husband, Claud, seem to carry a tone of patronization to them. She classifies the stylish woman as one of her own kind, and separates the rest of the people into groups beneath her. Ruby Turpin’s obsession with classification and judgment of others is part of the reason why she could be considered a “wart hog from Hell” (507). Her classification system ranges from “colored people” (491) at the bottom, to “people with a lot of money and much bigger houses and much more land” (491) at the very top. While she does not place herself in the uppermost category, she still considers herself above some of the people in that class, “for some people with a lot money were common and ought to be below she and Claud” (491). Mrs. Turpin’s act of judging those around her and placing herself so highly (perhaps more highly than she deserves) within her own social ranking system shows the amount of power that she believes she has, as well as the amount of pride that she has in her own perceived social status. Pride, as one of the seven deadly sins, is one of Mrs. Turpin’s most commonly exhibited traits, and undoubtedly one of the factors that causes and leads up to the “wart hog from Hell” exclamation.

Mrs. Turpin’s inflated ego is again apparent during her interactions with the “white trash” woman, during which she asserts the power to discriminate against others within her own interior monologues because she believes that she is of higher stature than the rest of the population. Regarding the white trash woman, Mrs. Turpin creates multiple theoretical scenarios in which she converses with God, categorizing and ranking the worst of the worst (in her opinion): “white-trash or a nigger or ugly” (492). Whenever the white trash woman speaks, Mrs. Turpin responds in her head with a demeaning and patronizing comment. For example, when the white trash lady talks about the green stamps and how she got herself some jewelry using them, Mrs. Turpin silently responds, “Ought to have got you a wash rag and some soap” (492). There are multiple instances in which Mrs. Turpin does not say anything malicious or unfriendly to the white trash woman, but instead makes snarky comments about the woman in her own mind. The fact that Mrs. Turpin acts like she is a good Christian woman but then proceeds to say nasty things about the white trash woman in her head is almost worse than simply being bluntly disrespectful. It seems that throughout the story, Mrs. Turpin either fails to understand or just completely ignores the fact that her internal dialogue and judgment of others is still malicious and sinful, and continues to advertise herself as a devout Christian and a “good woman”. The falsehood of Ruby Turpin’s religion is ultimately what sets off Mary Grace’s rampage, and what leads to the “old wart hog” comment. When Mrs. Turpin shouts, “Oh thank you Jesus, Jesus, thank you!”, Mary Grace throws the book at her head and madness ensues. The fact that Mrs. Turpin will not admit to her own faults amplifies her sin even further. Her greatest sin is the inconsistency between her inner monologues and her outward actions.

By giving the readers insight into her internal dialogue while she converses with the day laborer women, O’Connor further demonstrates the two-facedness of Ruby Turpin’s character. On one hand, she complains to herself and acknowledges how worthless “Negro flattery” (505) is, but on the other, she continues to complain to them, almost as if she still wants the women’s praise and validation. Mrs. Turpin tells her story using a tone that almost resembles how one would talk to a close friend; however, during her internal dialogue, she thinks to herself, “Idiots! [...] You could never say anything intelligent to a nigger” (505). Earlier in the story, Mrs. Turpin has a conversation with the pleasant lady in the waiting room about how well she treats the workers on her farm. During that conversation, Mrs. Turpin says, “I sure am tired of buttering up niggers, but you got to love em if you want em to work for you” (494). While she treats the day laborers with kindness by bringing them water and driving them to work, while also engaging them in conversation, her actions still completely differ from her internal dialogue, in which she puts them down and still looks down on them as inferior to herself. In a class conversation on “Revelation”, we at Greenhill discussed Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, in which the philosopher concludes that a virtuous magnanimity requires knowing the right thing, doing the right thing, and loving the act of doing it. According to this definition, Ruby Turpin is far from virtuous. Mrs. Turpin’s treatment of the laborer women fails to satisfy all three criteria of that definition, for while she knows and does the right thing for the workers, she does not love doing it. In fact, as evidenced by her internal dialogue while talking to the women, she is in fact, completely frustrated and almost resentful of the fact that she has to “butter up” or deal with the African-American women. Similar to the way that she treats the white trash woman in the waiting room, Mrs Turpin’s interactions with the laborer women consist of a semi-pleasant exterior accompanied by a spiteful and vindictive interior.

In the end, Mrs. Turpin comes to some sort of realization. In her vision, “they were marching behind the others with great dignity, accountable as they had always been for good order and common sense and respectable behavior. They alone were on key. Yet she could see by their shocked and altered faces that even their virtues were being burned away” (508). This revelation that self-admiration and self-satisfaction is ultimately what condemns people answers Ruby Turpin’s question of how she can be a good Christian and an “old wart hog from Hell.” The answer could have been discovered in her own Bible: “For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted” (Luke 18:14).

Work Cited

O’Connor, Flannery. The Complete Stories. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1971. Print.