How does Flannery O'Connor's story titled "Revelation" relate to southern identity and what it means to be a southerner?

• O’Connor wrote about the south because it was
  the region of the country she knew best. She had been born and bred in the south and was
  intimately familiar with its people and culture. (She also spoke with a southern accent
  so thick that often proved difficult for northerners to
  follow!)


• Although O’Connor wrote about the south, she
  tried to deal with “universal” issues – issues relevant to human beings everywhere.  One
  of these key issues, for instance, is pride, which is on abundant display in
  “Revelation,” especially in the mind of Mrs. Turpin.
  


• O’Connor felt that she could only deal with such themes
  convincingly if she gave them (in Shakespeare’s words) “a local habitation.” O’Connor
  could not pretend to know the culture of, say, New England intimately). But she could
  claim to know exactly how southerners of her time would speak and behave.
  


• At the time O’Connor was writing “Revelation,” the south
  was the focus of national and even international attention.  Because of the civil rights
  movement, the south had become an area filled with great conflict. O’Connor often
  depicts racism in her works as just one variation of the common human sin of pride, and
  so the racism that she observed all around her gave her plenty to write about. She could
  deal with an issue that was at once timely and timeless. Mrs. Turpin is a racist not
  because she is a southerner but because she is a proud woman, and racism is just a
  particular form of pride.


• By writing about the south,
  O’Connor also had the opportunity to write about another kind of pride: pride in one’s
  class and social status. Mrs. Turpin is obsessed with making (and preserving) social
  rankings. She thinks even more poorly of “white trash” than she does of many blacks. The
  south, at the time O’Connor was writing, was not only racially divided but also highly
  stratified in terms of class.  Mrs. Turpin, however, is not prejudiced about class
  because she is a southerner but because she is afflicted with pride – as all humans are
  (in O’Connor’s view).


• One more way in which O’Connor
  uses the south to make “Revelation” an effective story is her use of southern dialect
  and ways of expression.  An especially absurd example is when Mrs. Turpin imagines Jesus
  speaking to her in the colloquial jargon of the day, as when he calls people “white
  trash” and uses the “n word” to refer to blacks.  Of course, Jesus would never speak in
  such terms, but Mrs. Turpin has created a Christ in her own
  image.


• Typical of O’Connor’s use of southern speech is
  the reply by the “white trash” woman in the doctor’s office when the “pleasant lady”
  asks her what is wrong with her little
  boy:

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“He has a ulcer,” the woman said proudly. “He
ain’t give me a minute’s piece since he was born. Him and her are just alike,” she said,
nodding at the old woman, who was running her leathery fingers through the child’s pale
hair. “Look like I can’t get nothing down them two but Co’ Cola and
candy.”

The ability to create
such authentic and believable southern speech is one of the great achievements of
O’Connor’s writing, as "Revelation" abundantly demonstrates.