Ruby Turpin sees herself as "a respectable, hard-working, church-going woman." (Pg. 989) Ruby Turpin measures all things and sees all people through the frame of her own ego. Ruby likes to wonder what type of person she would have chosen to be if she couldn't have been herself. She would have "wiggled and squirmed and begged and pleaded" (Pg. 981) not to have been made "a nigger or white trash" (Pg. 981). Another of her intellectual hobbies is to classify others. O'Connor writes "Mrs. Turpin occupied herself at night naming the classes of people" (Pg. 981). Ruby Turpin's classifications of others are based solely on her standards of acceptability. She is especially critical of blacks and people she sees as poor white trash. On Ruby Turpin's social scale colored people are "on the bottom of the heap" (Pg. 981). "Then next to them--not above, just away from--were the white trash; then

Ruby Turpin's fall from her perch of judgment is predictable, but it comes in a rather unexpectedly violent manner. She is struck in the head by a heavy college textbook, "Human Development" (Pg. 980), and knocked almost unconscious. The book itself can perhaps be seen as a symbol of a lesson she needs to learn. This blow awakens Ruby Turpin to the inner world of other people and helps her to realize that they are just as free as she is to stereotype and categorize according to subjective whims. Then, to her horror, she learns that the college girl who threw the book sees her as "a wart-hog from hell" (Pg. 989). The college girl's tirade can be seen as the voice of the prophet who brings a revelation to Ruby Turpin. Ruby tries to deny that the girl's message was meant for her but she realizes that "the girl's eyes and her words, even the tone of her voice...brooked no redemption. She had been singled out for the message" (Pg. 989). It is only after Ruby gets hit in the head with the book and nearly strangled that she begins to apply the college girl's prophetic vision to her own life. We can only hope that she will see that if you "stop judging others...you will not be judged" (Matthew 7:1).

The fact that this revelation was directed at her makes Ruby angry-"Her eyes burned instead with wrath" (Pg. 989). Ruby thinks, "there was trash in the room to whom it might justly been applied" (Pg. 989). Once again Ruby fails to see fault with herself. You would think that as a "respectable, hard-working, church-going woman" (Pg. 989) she would be able to see that "God will treat you as you treat others" (Matthew 7:2).

It is

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Approximate Word count = 1108
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)