Short story by Flannery O'Connor
"Revelation" is a Southern Gothic short story by author Flannery O'Connor about the delivery and effect of a revelation to a sinfully proud, self-righteous, middle-aged, middle class, rural, white Southern woman that her confidence in her own Christian salvation is an error. The protagonist receives divine grace by accepting God's judgment that she is unfit for salvation (like a baptized hog), by learning that the prospect for her eventual redemption improves after she receives a vision of Particular Judgment, where she observes the souls of people she detests are the first to ascend to Heaven and those of people like herself who "always had a little of everything and the God-given wit to use it right" are last to ascend and experience purgation by fire on the way up.
The work was written during the last year of the author's life, a time she knew she was dying from her fourteen-year battle with lupus. O'Connor worked on revisions of "Revelation" while hospitalized, hiding drafts under her pillow.[1] She checked into the hospital and signed a letter to a close friend as "Mrs. Turpin", the story's protagonist. Some scholars believe the author was demonstrating that the character's racism was a mirror or projection of her own character,[3][4] which, given her own story, casts a dark shadow on the potential for her own salvation.
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