The protagonist of "Revelation," a short story by Flannery O’Connor, is Mrs. Ruby Turpin, a middle-class white Southern woman who is almost a caricature of narrow class and racial prejudices. The story begins in a doctor's waiting room where Mrs. Turpin starts a conversation with what appears to be a woman from a similar social background, who is accompanied by her daughter, Mary Grace, a college student suffering from acne.
The antagonist, Mary Grace, is attending Wellesley College and reading a textbook called Human Development. As her mother and Mrs. Turpin express various snobbish and racist opinions, Mary Grace becomes increasingly angry and eventually progresses from glaring at Mrs. Turpin to throwing her book at her. The nurses sedate Mary Grace, but when Mrs. Turpin returns home, she continues to ponder the significance of the episode and has a daydream or vision about the nature of salvation.
On a more profound level, the story is one about conflict between Mrs. Turpin's Christian beliefs and her racial and social prejudices.
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