For God’s Sake, Mrs. Turpin – Stop Throwing Stones

                As I read “Revelation,” I wondered why Mary Grace’s words lingered in Mrs. Turpin’s mind. But it seems possible that no one ever insulted Mrs. Turpin so directly before. Most of the characters at the doctor’s office agree with Mrs. Turpin’s assertions, and the African Americans who work for the Turpins continuously tell Mrs. Turpin that she’s the “sweetest white lady [they] know” (O’Connor 505). Until she is attacked by Mary Grace, it never occurs to Mrs. Turpin that she is not favored by God, but Mary Grace’s words make Mrs. Turpin believe that God himself is comparing her to a lowly animal.

            Mrs. Turpin judges others continuously and does not think that she deserves the judgement she has been placing on others. At first, I found the conversation between Mrs. Turpin and the other characters in the doctor’s office tedious. I was repelled by the judgement running through nearly every line. But if I’m learning anything about Flannery O’Connor, it is that, when her readers are uneasy, she has reached her goal in showing her audience a fundamental flaw in human nature.

I was astounded by Mrs. Turpin’s assertions that she is kind to all people, but then I realized that Mrs. Turpin genuinely believes she is a good person. As Mrs. Turpin likes to remind readers, “It’s no trash around here, black or white, that [she] hasn’t given to” (O’Connor 597). Mrs. Turpin does not see the fault in her ways, which is why she becomes furious when she believes that God is telling her she is no better than those she considers beneath her.

When Mrs. Turpin sees the souls entering heaven, I thought of the Bible verse that says “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone” (King James Bible, John. 8:7). Mrs. Turpin’s derogatory comments and use of racial slurs clearly show that she casts plenty of stones. Through the vision of souls ascending to heaven, it seems that God is telling Mrs. Turpin that those she sees as worse than animals are ascending to heaven, while she is still on Earth. I think that when O’Connor wrote the ending of “Revelation,” she was reminding her readers that God does not favor one type of person over another, and people who think that they can choose who is worthy of heaven have overlooked God’s teachings.

Sources: The Bible. Authorized King James Version, Oxford UP, 1998.

Who Sees the Good in Humanity? Certainly Not Flannery O'Connor

          

A depiction of the final scene of "A Good Man is Hard to Find."

              Flannery O’Connor writes about a gentlemanly murderer in her story “A Good Man is Hard to Find.” I think that the killers’ attempt at a civilized version of the act of murder is used to emphasize the irony of the title. The title “A Good Man is Hard to Find” causes me to wonder what makes a good man. I began to think about “The Misfit” compared to Bailey. Bailey is often harsh toward his mother, and after the car accident, the grandmother is “curled up under the dashboard, hoping she [is] injured so that Bailey’s wrath [will] not come down on her all at once” (O’Connor 125). So when The Misfit speaks to the grandmother and tells Hiram to “hep that lady” out of the ditch, his actions right before he and his companions murder the entire family seem almost gentlemanly compared to Bailey’s actions (O’Connor 131). The Misfit’s seemingly odd and uncharacteristic actions (for an escaped convict) cause the reader to wonder what constitutes a good man.

                It also seems important to note that The Misfit was not planning to murder the family until the grandmother recognized him as The Misfit. This may seem a small detail, but if The Misfit was not originally planning to murder the family, then why would he stop on the road after the family crashed? I think that The Misfit was going to help the family. By stopping to help the family, The Misfit displays the qualities of a good Samaritan. The character who possibly killed his own father and eventually killed a helpless old woman stops to help a family who crashed their car. Since I read “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” I have been stuck on the idea that The Misfit was actually planning to help before he was identified.

                Douglas Novich Leonard, author of the article “Experiencing Flannery O’Connor’s ‘A Good Man is Hard to Find,'” stated that Flannery O’Connor’s goal in her writing is to show that “all humans are morally grotesque” (Leonard 1). If O’Connor wants to show the painfully grotesque aspects of humanity, it seems odd that she portrays some of The Misfit’s actions as kind and gentle. It occurred to me though that perhaps O’Connor is attempting to convince her readers of this moral grotesqueness by writing about a character who may at first seem kind. O’Connor shows the good in The Misfit just before unmasking the horrible reality of the murderous man. O’Connor needs to show the side of The Misfit that could be perceived as kind in order to crush her readers’ hopes that The Misfit is ultimately a moral person. It seems that in “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” Flannery O’Connor laughs at readers who wish to see the good in humanity. The children are clearly spoiled, Bailey is harsh and uncaring toward his mother, and the grandmother is manipulative. The characters in the story are not what I would consider good people. In the story, in an attempt to convince him not to kill her, the grandmother tells The Misfit that he is “a good man at heart,” (O’Connor 128). And just like the grandmother in that moment, I wished to find the good in the characters, but Flannery O’Connor makes her point when The Misfit murders the entire family. Humanity is sinful, and if you think otherwise, you’re ignoring the cruelty and violence hidden just beneath the surface.

Sources:

Leonard, Douglas Novich. “Experiencing Flannery O’Connor’s ‘A Good Man Is Hard To Find.’”         Interpretations, vol. 14, no. 2, 1983, p. 1. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/23241513. Accessed 29             Jan. 2021.