Disgrace

In O'Connor's "Revelation", it is hard to claim Mary Grace's attack as a justified act. Throughout the story, Mrs. Turpin makes statements that many people may disagree with in 2005, but this story does not take place today. Mary Grace did not know Mrs. Turpin. The only thing that Mary Grace did know about Mrs. Turpin was the way Mrs. Turpin thought of herself and how grateful she is to be herself. Mary Grace's actions would have been justified if she had known Mrs. Turpin and what actually goes through Mrs. Turpin's mind about people.

All of the characters' reasons for waiting to be seen by a doctor were mentioned, except for Mary Grace and her mother's reason. Mary Grace was not mentioned to be ill and neither was her mother. Mary Grace's mother also indirectly stated that Mary was an ungrateful child who never says kind words, never smiles, and just criticizes and complains (272). Perhaps Mary Grace was an unstable child, which is why she was waiting to be seen by the doctor. Throughout the story, Mary never did smile, and she also called Mrs. Turpin a wart hog and for her to go back to hell, which aren't very kind words. Now we can only assume that Mary was criticizing and complaining about Mrs. Turpin in her mind, after all, she did throw a book at her and choked her. Many of us only dream that we had it in ourselves to jump anyone that we do not agree with. So it seems possible that Mary Grace may have been a little on the "crazy" side, which may induce her to retaliate against anyone who she does not like for any reason which would not justify her attack.

Throughout the story, there were many racial comments about black people, often referred to as Negroes and niggers. The black population was never talked about in a positive way in the story. They were only thought of as people who do the work that well off white people refuse to do, such as pick cotton (O'Connor 269). Mrs. Turpin stated that she has to actually be nice to the slaves in order for them to work for Claud and her. She said that she now has to greet them when they are brought into the farm, bring them a bucket of ice-water and wave good-bye when they leave; this is all being said as if it's a shame to be nice to black people (269). After this being said, many people these days would like to jump out of their chairs and strangle Mrs. Turpin themselves, but this is how the community was like during the early 1900s to mid 1900s. At the same time, the "white-trash" woman was being blunt about her opinions of black people and was more controversial compared to Mrs. Turpin. So considering the time period, the

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