“Revelation” -Flannery O’Connor

“Revelation” by Flannery O’Connor is a great example of how race was treated and viewed in the 1960’s. According to the Spokane Daily Chronicle from January 1965, times were changing. The South had begun to greater accept African Americans. However, this only fueled those who were against them. So the separation grew to more of a love or a hate for them. Some people saw African Americans as filth, where others saw them as neither good nor bad, while others had a great struggle trying to pick a side. Mrs. Turpin is an example of the third. Towards the beginning of the story she recalls how if God had asked her if she wanted to be white trash, or black, she most definitely would have been black. “All right, make me a nigger then—but that don’t mean a trashy one.” And he (God) would have made her a neat clean respectable Negro woman, herself but black” (382). In this you can see that she almost would have been okay with being black, and that it was much better than other things. This is where you see her inner struggle begin to unfold. Here she gives the connotation that there is nothing that would be different if she were black, just her skin color. Later however when she is speaking to her black workers she shows the other side of her warring opinions. “Idiots! Mrs. Turpin growled to herself. You could never say anything intelligent to a nigger. You could talk at them but not with them” (390). Here she shows her other opinions that they were most definitely not her, and were lower than her. Mrs. Turpin seems to know that at heart blacks are just the same as whites, however due to the negative society views she has a very hard time letting herself think this. Blacks were moving up in society, but the process was slow. Some people still hated them, while others lived with them and found them bearable, yet struggled with those feelings due to society telling them they were wrong.