Revelations And Parker's Back The Story example essay topic

Revelations and Parker's Back The story "Revelations" by Flannery O'Connor portrays the character of Ms. Turpin as a very hypocritical Christian. It's absurd how obvious she is in her view of society; it could not be less unchristian like. Her opinions towards other people and their intelligence are Ms. Turpin's greatest flaw. "Parker's Back" also written by Flannery O'Connor is just the opposite of Revelations, Parker spends his entire life trying to fill a void that has grown so deep inside him it becomes unbearable.

His continual dislike and downgrading of Christianity plays into his problems even more. The stories have very unique approaches, both of which prove to be very intriguing. The character of Ms. Turpin shows from the very start that she is going to encounter many problems as the story progresses. Her dislike for Negroes or as she referred to them as "niggers" and her constant distinction of social class ranking showed that she was not the Christian she claimed to be. When she talks about cotton she says "you can't get the white folks to pick it and now you can't get the niggers-because they got to be right up there with the white folk". When she looked at herself she saw a very good Christian.

She always congratulated herself on how she always helped everyone and was always there to take care of her slaves. Nevertheless she had hidden meaning for all of these; she only helped the slaves so that she could make sure she would not lose them. Also Ms. Turpin chose to critique every person she encountered and discuss their flaws and how she was glad that God did not make her a nigger or white trash. Mrs. Turpin explains her views when she says "If its one thing I am, its grateful.

When I think who all I could have been besides myself and what I got, a little of everything, I just feel like shouting". Her character does not seem to be a very honest character; she puts on an act around everybody to make sure she can derive from them what she needs. A perspective on this from Dorothy T. McFarland in a formalist reading was that "O'Connor obviously felt that Mrs. Turpin's belief in her own goodness was, if anything, more of an obstacle to the salvation of her soul that an outright commitment to evil". (perspectives, 409) She always seemed to think she was doing right, never seeing anything wrong until the end of the story. After being called a wart hog from hell she opens her eyes and sees the truth. A good way of understanding the symbolic ness of this is best put by Todd Heldt when they say "no amount of cleansing will ever change the essence, no amount of good work or intellectual justification will change the sinful nature of human beings". (Browse) She was finally realizing the concept of her being a bad Christian.

She finally comes to terms with her sense of herself. The other story "Parker's Back" takes another unique route. The character of Parker is that of an honest but sometimes deceiving lower class Negro. He is a very unintelligent person and lacks any understanding for the Christian belief.

His life is like that of any person struggling, except he does not go to God with his problems. He views Christianity as a waste, he says that he has no use for it and that he does not need it. His way of dealing with his problems is by getting tattoos on his body. He meets a girl who is a Christian and strongly disapproves of all he does. He swears and continues to get tattoos. She describes him as being covered in vanities and refuses to view the tattoos.

Flannery O'Connor chooses a humorous but very tragic approach in a sense of how Parker fills the increasing void in his life. He vows not to cover his back with a tattoo, the one remaining part of his body that is clean and sinless. However after trying to please his wife, he becomes obsessed with wanting to please her and make her be content with his tattoos. He sees a great chance of conquering this if he gets a tattoo of God on his back. He does this and upon the inspection by his wife everything changes. She despises it and proceeds to beat Parker till he leaves the house because she is so upset.

She remarks it to be "the vanity of vanities". It is very symbolic that O'Connor brings to Parker the understanding of himself through a tattoo of God. Gene Startzman elaborates on this by saying "Moses was required to remove his shoes because he was on holy ground Parker hasn't recognized the holy ground of his being, so God removes Parker's shoes for him and provides him the motivating vision for seeking out the [tattoo] artist (who will show him the Christ that he doesn't know yet.) " (Startzman) It was a great way to draw the reader in and get the point vividly drawn. The story of "Revelations" shows Ms. Turpin sense of herself and her view on her Christianity. Its is very humorous how she is obviously not leading the Christian life. "Parker's Back" also takes a great approach on dealing with how the character of Parker deals with the concept of Christianity.

Both stories deal with the character in different ways and yet they both get the meaning across with great ease.

Bibliography

McFarland, Dorothy T. "A Formalist Reading of 'Revelation. ' " The Bedford Introduction to Literature (1996): p 409-410 Heldt, Todd.
Browse Through Flannery O'Connor". 2002 Startzman, Gene "Parker's Back"2002 web.