Ruby Turpin Essay

Her knowledge does not rest upon the will of God, but on the racist environment she lives in. Ruby Turnip is a closet racist, she loves to categorize people and put them in boxes. It is the environment she is surrounded with that influences her actions. But the influence around her is not invincible. Ruby Turnip has been given the capability to break out of her mold and become something more. She has been given by God a chance to become a better Christian. A culture and way of life are engraved into your being from the beginning of your birth.

A hypocritical culture, like that of the South, creates an interesting conflict of ideas and beliefs. The ordinary Southerner is a Christian who airships God every Sunday; one believes that at the end of time, God will judge them by looking at all his lifetime's deeds, both good and bad. But he is also born into an environment that has a lot of prejudice. These opposing values, one symbolizing charity and brotherhood and the other representing an elitist culture, are taught and engraved in the South.

Ruby Turnip believes she is a good Christian women but participates in the old southern pastime of racism. She believes that she is not racist, but is shocked to see blacks leading the way into heaven. She treats the black helpers like idiots, putting on a ask to cover her true prejudices and beliefs. It takes the spontaneous outburst of Mary Grace for Ruby Turnip to be shaken out of her closed point of view. She cannot understand how she is both a Christian and a warthog from hell. At first she cannot understand why, not seeing her own hypocrisy and pharisaic attitude.

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But at the end of the story, Ruby Turnip has a vision of the procession to heaven with those she considered lesser in front of her to heaven. It is a cultural shock. Everything she was made to believe in is false. Everything she has learned about the world and its society is false. The only Ruth she now has is the Divine Truth, the revelation from God. It is up to Ruby Turnip to use this new found truth as way to become a better Christian ore forsake this new divine revelation. It is possible for Ruby Turnip to overcome and triumph over the social norms she faces in the depraved and biased culture she faces in the South.

She, unlike the other characters we encounter in the story, ponders over the caste question. In one sense Ruby Turnip is better than her husband, Claude, and most other Southerners. She constantly ponders and obsesses over the classification of people as she may have a guilty conscience. Her constant thinking might make her able to come to terms with her own attitude. Claude is a man that accepts the bias culture that he has grown and lived with. Moreover, he neither questions nor ponders about the social question he is surrounded with.

He chooses to ignore it. On the other hand, Turnip falls asleep pondering this question. Quote. Her nonstop mulling over this question shows that it is possible for her to grow into a more perfect Christian. The idea that while others do not think about the bias they have grown with, Ruby Turnip thinks about this social norm every day. Ruby Turnip t her core is a person with contradicting beliefs: a Christian, and a judgmental Southern. She is a person capable of being apathetic to the plight of others. She agrees with the spirit of the song.

The gospel song's message "You go to your church / And I'll go to mine / But we'll all walk along together We'll help each other out" (496), which is played in the reception room, States that all though we are all different We are all Christians and that we will all walk together hand in hand to heaven and ultimately to God. This shows that her Christian beliefs of equality is a strong and integral part of her being. Ruby Turnip's philosophy in life is to help others. She makes it her life goal to help those that are in need, who need a hand. She never spared herself when she found somebody in need, whether they were white or black, trash or decent' (497). It is her duty as a morally upright Christian to not see others for what they are but for who they are. Ruby Turnip knows that before death, we are all equal. She dreams that "they [people] were all crammed in together in a box car, being ridden of to be put in a gas oven" (492) This graphic imagery references the holocaust when the Jews were crammed into box cars and transported. O camps. This scene symbolizes that before death and ultimately God we are all equal.

That no matter our station or position in life we are, before God's judgment we are equal. Ruby Turnip although a biased and judgmental person, she is not morally at fault. The definition of a sin is any act regarded as such a transgressions especially a willful or deliberate violation of some religious or moral principle. Her sin or transgression is no a deliberate act against God's will. She believes in the truth that she has been taught: that racism and judgmental doesn't go against or oppose the divine will of God. The environment around her has affected her to the point of not realize her own moral faults and defects.

This is the reason why she has trouble grappling over Mary Grace's revelation: that she, Ruby Turnip, a believer in the grace of God is a warthog from hell. Her judgmental and racism can only be considered a culpable sin when she encounters Mary Grace. Mary Grace is the first oppositions to the beliefs Ruby Turnip has grown up with. She is the only one to go against the social norms that have been imposed by the southern society. Mary Grace represents an enlightened, more modern world view on societal bigotry. It takes the grace of God to knock some human development into her.

Ruby Turnip is not culpable for her sin because of her ignorance. Her ignorance of a more Christian point of view of the world, blocks her path to God. But as soon as God reveals to her the truth, Ruby Turnip has a choice: either accept this revelation or turn away from God and believe in the society beliefs. "For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall much be required; and to whom much was committed, more will be asked of him. But he that knew not, and did commit things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few stripes" (Luke 12:48).

Those who are not given much are not expected to give back, they are punished less severely than those who much is given but don't give back to God are punished to the most limits. "For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Chrism's, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to promise: (Galatians 3:26-29). We are all brothers and sisters with Christ and because Of this We are the heirs to the promise of eternal salvation with God.

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