Humanity has always depended on visual clarity. In ancient times, the inability to accurately see one’s surroundings and thus hunt or scavenge food frequently caused people to starve to death. Today, drivers who cannot see well often fail to detect and react to oncoming vehicles, resulting in accidents. An inability to see human nature at a deeper level is also dangerous, for those who cannot accurately detect selfish motivations in others frequently end up in abusive situations. Though the failure to perceive physical or social dangers is detrimental, pride is especially harmful because it affects one’s perception of self and surroundings. Arrogant people often fail to realize their shortcomings since they preoccupy themselves with searching for flaws in others. In “Revelation,” Flannery O’Connor encourages readers to search for pride within themselves by demonstrating that Mrs. Turpin’s pride warps her perception of herself and the people around her.
First, Mrs. Turpin’s racial pride leads her to misjudge Black Americans. In an imaginary conversation with Jesus, Mrs. Turpin, a White woman, reveals her biased perception of Black people, stating, “You could have made me a nigger … but I could act like one. Lay down in the middle of the road and stop traffic. Roll on the ground” (507). O’Connor wrote “Revelation” in the middle of the American Civil Rights Movement, during which protestors would often lie down in the street and disrupt traffic to protest racial injustices against Black Americans. Instead of considering the racial inequities that prompted the protests, Mrs. Turpin immediately writes all Blacks off as childish attention-seekers. Mrs. Turpin further demonstrates her belief that Blacks are less intelligent than Whites like herself. She states, “You could never say anything intelligent to a nigger. You could talk at them but not to them” (505). Mrs. Turpin believes herself to be better and more intelligent than Black people because their skin is darker than hers. Though there are no significant anatomical differences between Whites and Blacks, Mrs. Turpin pridefully allows a barrier as thin as skin to separate herself from Blacks in her mind. Having mentally labeled Blacks as different from her, she then criticizes them because of their dark skin.
Mrs. Turpin’s physical pride also causes her to ignore her flaws while emphasizing Mary Grace’s. While in the waiting room of the doctor’s office, Mrs. Turpin encounters Mary Grace, a “fat girl of eighteen or nineteen” whose face is “blue with acne” (490). Mrs. Turpin, who is so overweight that she makes the doctor’s waiting room appear smaller by her presence (488), ignores her unhealthy size to criticize Mary Grace’s acne-ridden face. She thinks, “How pitiful it was to have a face like that at that age,” for “[Mrs. Turpin] herself was fat but always had good skin” (490). Throughout the book, Mrs. Turpin continues to emphasize Mary Grace’s acne-ridden face, calling her “ugly” (492), “sear-faced” (492), and “raw-complexioned” (495). However, she deliberately avoids criticizing Mary Grace’s obesity to circumvent implicating herself. Instead, she selectively attacks Mary Grace’s acne, a superficial flaw they do not share, allowing Mrs. Turpin to highlight her good skin. In this instance, Mrs. Turpin’s unwavering focus on Mary Grace’s superficial physical blemishes and failure to consider her extreme obesity demonstrates a severe sense of physical pride.
Mrs. Turpin’s socioeconomic pride finally leads her to denigrate poor people. Throughout “Revelation,” she refers to poor Whites who do not own land as “White trash” (491). Mrs. Turpin encounters one such woman during her visit to the doctor. She describes the woman as wearing a “yellow sweat shirt and wine-colored slacks, both gritty looking … her dirty yellow hair was tied behind with a little piece of red paper ribbon” and being “worse than niggers any day” (490). Instead of realizing that the woman may appear dirty because of an inability to afford regular baths or to buy new clothes, Mrs. Turpin immediately chalks it up to laziness. She says, “Too lazy to light the fire. There was nothing you could tell her about people like them that she didn’t know anything … She knew all this from her own experience” (497). Mrs. Turpin’s pride leads her to short-sightedly label the other woman lazy because of her dirty appearance and poor socioeconomic status. However, poverty and uncleanliness in isolation imply nothing about one’s character! A morally good woman who experiences calamity may become poor and unable to bathe or afford new, clean clothes. At the same time, a lazy, morally corrupt woman may become rich due to good fortune. Ultimately, Mrs. Turpin’s pride causes her to judge another woman as worthless “trash” without sufficient justification (491).
In “Revelation,” Mrs. Turpin allows her pride to color how she sees those around her. Throughout the book, her pride leads her to view unimportant cultural, economic, and physical differences between herself and others as reasons to criticize them. While one can often recognize vices like lust or sloth within himself, pride conceals its presence by spotlighting superficial differences between oneself and others. Because prideful people are intent on criticizing others, they fail to consider whether their criticisms are warranted and neglect to examine themselves for flaws. Flannery O’Connor writes “Revelation” with a deep understanding of pride’s harmful nature and its powerful ability to conceal itself. By emphasizing Mrs. Turpin’s foolish habit of judging others by the appearance of their skin, O’Connor demands readers examine themselves and ask, “Who do you think you are?” (507).
