About the Author
Flannery O'Connor, author of the short story Revelation, was a southern writer born in Savannah, Georgia. Her biography stated that as a writer, she relied heavily on regional settings and grotesque characters. In her short story Revelation, Mrs. Turpin was illustrated as a heavy southern woman who identified others by their social class and threw around the word nigger nonchalantly. O'Connor portrayed Mrs. Turpin as a wealthy southern woman of a high social class who owned several African Americans to work on her cotton farm. This high social status woman truly held no class based on her attitude towards others, making her a grotesque and hated character throughout the story.
Flannery O'Connor also corresponded her heavy Roman Catholic faith with her writing. Along with her religion holding a strong part in her writing, O'Connor also tied in the idea of morality into her stories and novels. This holds an influential role in Revelation because morality is the differentiation of intentions or actions of those who are good, right, bad or wrong. Throughout the story, Mrs. Turpin strongly believed her views, beliefs and her way of life was right and no one else had a say to argue it. At the end, when she herd Mary Grace call her "an old wart hog from hell," she realized that the way she had been carrying herself had been wrong along with being quite bad. In the biography, O'Connor described herself as a "pigeon-toed child with a receding chin and a you-leave-me-alone-or-I'll-bite-you complex." This description can be seen as grotesque and ugly, tying into the way she portrays Mrs. Turpin, Mary Grace and the white trash woman in Revelation. O'Connor's father died from systemic lupus erythematosus and died when she was only fifteen. This tragic accident that happened to O'Connor can have a connection with her grotesque and bold writing style with somewhat of an aggressive feel.
One of O'Connor's trademarks is foreshadowing, giving the reader an idea of what will happen to a character before it happens. This came up several times in the beginning of Revelation when Mary Grace continuously stared at Mrs. Turpin with an aggressively vicious look. Each time it happened, the stares at Mrs. Turpin became more violent and flustered Mrs. Turpin, not knowing what she did wrong to this young girl. Finally, Mary Grace could not take Mrs. Turpin's crude behavior and wailed a book at her head. O'Connor's texts mostly take place in the south, always revolving around a morally flawed character. One of the quotes about her emphasis of the grotesque that stood out most to me was, "anything that comes out of the south is going to be called grotesque by the northern reader, unless it is grotesque, in which case it is going to be called realistic."
I really liked all the connections you made from the story to O'Connor, learning about her life helped make it clear why she wrote her stories the way she did. What she said in her quote about the emphasis of the grotesque made a lot of sense to me for many reasons. One being that northerns and southerns have different styles of living and manners which is why "the grotesque" is perceived differently by different people. The second reason being that she calls grotesque realistic because just like the example in Revelation, people are not always as kind and good as they believe themselves to be.
ReplyDeleteIt was really interesting to learn about the background story of O'Connor and have an idea of why her writing is so blunt. Along with Ashley, I also really enjoyed reading that last quote in which she used to descibe the word grotesque. I agree that it's all about perspective and where your from. Do you think that same attitude should also be applied when reading the story? Does Mrs. Turpin get a pass for swearing and using such vulgar language? Just a thought.
ReplyDeleteReally enjoyed your post!
I liked how you put direct connections between the author and story. Having the background about the author is easier to understand and enjoy the story. The way you talked about the end of the story with Mary Grace and the author's life experiences, helps the main meaning of the story as a whole. It's also interesting how she writes her stories revolving around the South and how you pointed that out. This was a really good post!!
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