Revelation by Flannery O'Connor

Krista Behrends

Hello everyone here is my response to this weeks readings.

The group of short stories that we recently read seems to have a common thread of loss and dealing with life’s obstacles. In Lorrie Moore’s writing People Like That Are The Only People Here: Canonical Babbling in Peed Onk, Flannery O’Connor’s Revelation, and Amy Hempel’s In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson is Buried, we see three different stories of friends and family dealing with struggles in the same setting. They all take place in a hospital or doctor’s office. The most interesting connection to me was Joyce Carol Oates’ The Girl with the Blackened Eye and Lorrie Moore’s piece. In both writings there is a disconnection of mind and body. Oates writing was about a girl who was abducted and tortured physically, sexually, and emotionally. It is her looking back at what happened. But, she disconnects herself from the situation by referring to herself in third person often and speaking about it as though she were not actually there. For example she says, “I’m saying these things were done to me but in fact they were done to my body mostly (201).” This is an understandable disconnection with one’s body when you go through such a dramatic event. She also looks back as though she is telling someone else’s story when she says, “In the backseat the girl was crying. If she had tears she would have cried (206).” This is another example of disconnection in the main character. Similarly, the Mother in Moore’s story always refers to herself as Mother with a capital “M” and Baby and Husband. She never gives the family names as if it was only a story and not real. As if giving names to the family members would be to admit that the pain was real. I thought this was an interesting connection.
The story that was most interesting to me was Flannery O’Connor’s Revelation. Interesting diction was used. Again you see the use of language to show the difference in class. O’Connor’s character Mrs. Turpin uses an interesting way to describe the other characters. Most of the surrounding characters are not given names. Rather, they are named after a trait that Mrs. Turpin notices. Such as “the well-dressed lady” or “the ugly girl” (254). The readers know early on that Mrs. Turpin is not a good person but Mrs. Turpin herself takes longer to have this revelation. Dramatic irony comes in to play when Mrs. Turpin sees the events that played out differently than the readers see it. She absolutely is an “old wart hog” (266). My favorite part of the story is when she is hosing down the hogs while screaming and challenging God. All the while she is hurting the pregnant sow and saying that she was a woman of God that did good for the church (273). Until she saw people of every color and walk of life walking toward the gates of heaven she still did not have her “revelation.” Even after that the reader still doubts whether Mrs. Turpin got the message. I truly enjoyed Flannery O’Connor’s storytelling skills in this short story.

Posted by: Krista Behrends