Impact of Catholic Family on O’ Connor`s Works

Flannery O’ Connor was born on March 25, 1925 in Savannah, Georgia. She grew up in a Catholic family and was the only child. Due to her growing up in a Catholic family, she prompt most of her work towards religion. In Revelation, Mrs. Turpin is the main character who considers herself better than everyone else. Mary Grace is characterized as O’Connor because O’ Connor had a very close relationship with God. Throughout her life, O’ Connor dealt with Religion, Discrimination, and Grace and she expressed that through the characters in this story.

O’ Connor was raised in a Catholic family. Her writings reveal around her theme religion, but it does not influence their daily life or their human relationships. Like in revelation, the main character Mrs. Turpin thought being kind would pass off as being a Christian.

She thought that Christianity was based offed social statuses or if you was rich or poor. When Mrs. Turpin was waiting in the doctor’s office, she started to categorize everybody according to what they were wearing and if they are clean or not.

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If they did not have good manners and give up a seat for her or if they did not dress classy she thought they would not good enough. As she was waiting for the doctor, she started a conversation with a stylish woman, who was decent in her eyes. As they are talking, she noticed a college girl named Mary Grace that was scowling at her. It was like the more Mrs.

Turpin tried to talk about Christianity with socialism, Mary Grace got upset and through a book at her and tried to choke her while telling her that she needs to “go back to hell where you came from, you old wart hog” (827). After that encounter, Mrs. Turpin started to ask question about herself and realize that social status is not a real deed of God’s blessing. O’ Connor probably had encountered someone like Mrs. Turpin and wanted to teach the readers that socialism is not Christianity and we all need to love one another.

During the time when O’ Connor wrote Revelation, discrimination was taking place. Some people was discriminating other people and O’ Connor herself sometimes discriminate. In the story, the characters are discriminating African Americans calling them names and saying that they should send them back to where they came from. When Mrs. Turpin was talking to the pleasant lady, she told her that if she wanted the African Americans to work for her, then she got to be nice to them. She also discrimination people who have a lower social class. O’ Connor also represented Grace in her story. After the doctor visit, Mrs. Turpin was upset about what happened. She told the black women, that was working for her, what happened to help her reassure herself but they was not helping, according to her calling them “idiots”. After the talk, she went to go hose down her hogs. She was thinking to herself, asking question about herself. She was hosing off the hogs like she was trying to hose down all of her sins.

Her problem was that she thought Mary Grace’s was insulting her, but she did not realize that she was insulting other people in the doctor office. When she was finished hosing down the hogs, she was walking back she was listening to the “souls climbing upward into the starry field and shouting hallelujah” (832). At that moment, Mrs. Turpin realizes that she is wrong and her knowing her wrong doings, she found Grace. O’ Connor’s lived her life the best she can by worshiping God and writing stories. She was considered one of America’s greatest fiction writers and she was the strongest apologists in the Roman Catholicism.

Throughout her life, she probably experiences a lot of judgment, either from other people or from her judging other people. She experienced discrimination, and she saw someone who needed a revelation to find their grace. With O’ Connor experiencing all of that, she decided to write a story about it. She used characters to show and represent all the things she experiences like Mary Grace represents the Grace part of the story, and she also characterizes O’ Connor. She is trying to show people that you cannot call yourself a Christian, if you are being judgmental and ranking people from their social status. O' Connor wants to show the readers their grace, so they can change their ways and becoming a better person.