Judgments to Realizations

Jessica Gordon
AP English


Judgments to Realizations


Flannery O’ Connor begins “Revelation” by introducing Mrs. Turpin, a judgmental middle-aged woman who appears to, on the surface, “wear the pants” in her relationship with husband, Claud. Waiting with her husband in the doctors’ office, she “puts a firm hand on [his] shoulder” and tells him, “you sit in that chair there” (1).Her controlling nature turns myopic: while waiting in the doctors’ office with her husband, Mrs. Turpin is quick to label innocent bystanders who are waiting for their own appointments. The victims include: “pleasant lady,” “ugly girl,” “old lady,” and the “colored boy.” Her judgmental temperament is blatantly obvious: She does not know these people, yet provides one-word stereotypes for them. The comments turn degrading and prejudiced when Mrs. Turpin says, “There’s a heap of things worst than a nigger, it’s all kinds of them just like it’s all kinds of us.” (60). In addition to stereotyping the patients as well as controlling her husband, Mrs. Turpin goes so far as to criticize the tangible items in the doctors’ office. She is not a fan of the cluttered table with the “limp-looking magazines” and the “big green glass ash tray filled with cigarette butts” (10). It’s as if Mrs. Turpin is caught in a downward spiral, insulting every one and everything even though she has no business doing so. However, despite the surface appearance that Mrs. Turpin is controlling and prejudiced, her acts are merely reflections on her internal struggles and the battles against herself to find out who she truly is.


We see Mrs. Turpin in her own struggle after Ugly Girl attempts to attack her in the waiting room. When Ugly Girl both physically lunges at her as well as says, “Go back to hell where you came from, you old wart hog,” (110) Mrs. Turpin is hit with a ton of bricks. Losing her appetite that night and tearfully defending herself to her husband, Mrs. Turpin is both hurt and defensive surrounding this comment. However, her revelation begins to take place when she realizes who the comment was directed to. While she wants it to be aimed at the hopefully flawed patients in the room, she knows it is directed at her other half: “the respectable, hard-working, church-going woman.” Despite this newfound understanding, Mrs. Turpin is not fully relieved from her internal pain and struggles at this point. In fact, she falls back into her previously characteristic mold by criticizing once again: “it’s too late for me to be a nigger, but I could act like one.” (180) The comment from Ugly Girl appeared to have taken a small emotional toll on this struggling woman, who remembers when she was the well-liked, pious woman.


Mrs. Turpin begins to symbolically find a way to communicate with G-d as her next step to find answers. After being described as going into battle (the hog pen) weaponless, the “mysterious hue” and “visionary lights” began to set in. The moment hits her when she notes, “the gaze bent to [me] as if [I] was absorbing some abysmal life-giving knowledge.” (190). Her intense realization of her human place in society is further shown when the souls—these were the people she was judging before—were marching towards heaven. A religious woman at some point in her life, Mrs. Turpin appears to now, through the powerful imagery and signs of G-d, understand that she is no better than other humans. The truth has finally reached her after she remained motionless in the pig-pen as the fates of those she had judged flashed before her eyes. Seeing those she had criticize “climbing upward into the starry field and shouting hallelujah (190)” proved to affect her because she sees the people she judged going to heaven. Her communication with G-d in the pig pen proved to be her turning point and moment of realization that she is part of human kind too, no better and no worse.


G-d’s communication with Mrs. Turpin through the visions and flashing lights demonstrated her needed “reality check” of who she appears to be and who she used to be. While we still do not know why she reverted from being a respectable, church-going woman, it is clear that Mrs. Turpin needed outside influences to remind her who she is in society.

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Questions:

1. Does Mrs. Turpin actually reach a turning point/revelation, or is she just in the moment of the gaze and will probably go back to her old ways?
2. Why is this story set in the waiting room of the doctors’ office?
3. Why is Ugly Girl the only one who O’ Connor gives a real name/identity?