For Flannery O’Connor Grace is a gift bestowed upon the world, and Grace strikes hard. In history men and women have dealt with confusions of their own faith, and even in finding it, life is not assuredly pleasant. Grace, in O’Connor is associated with violence, and repulsion. When the hand of God touches you, it doesn’t stroke, it pummels you into the ground. Through her writing, O’Connor uses images of distortion to prove the existence of God.. O’Connor herself led a life of pain, and suffering when she was diagnosed with the hereditary disease Lupus. She used this affliction as a tool in which to wield her writing.         Her most superficial manner of using distortion is in the names she gives to her characters. Hazel Motes is a transient. He’s lost his family, and his faith. He preaches the word of his self-created church “The Church without Christ.” Motes makes an exhibition of himself. He actively parks his vehicle in areas of mass population, and preaches atop the hood of his car to the soulless that walk the street. O’Connor portrays the world as black, and lacking of personality. Haze speaks with fury and fervor to those that meander up to his car. He is on display: “....under a streetlight, was a high rat-colored car and up on the nose of it, a dark figure with a fierce white hat on. The figures arms were working up and down and he had thin gesticulating hands, almost as pale as the hat (Wise 72)”. This act of open defiance in the act of God is masochistic. It is humiliation to the point of pleasure. And only O’Connor would take the one pinnacle of light, the “white hat” and call it “fierce.”         The name Motes, sounds not unlike the word smote, meaning: “To attack, damage or destroy by or as if by blows (dictionary.com) or “To afflict retributively, chasten or chastise (dictionary.com). It’s one example of the name play throughout O’Connors Writing. There is the child whose name is Sabbath, Sabbath meaning: The day of rest. It is first mentioned as having bene instituted in Paradise when man was in innocence. As a child, Sabbath should be beautiful and sweet, but in O’Connors world of distortion she is homely and promiscuous. She writes a letter to a local Q&A column in the paper: “Dear Mary.... Do you think I should neck or not?....should I go the whole hog or not? (Wise 61)”. These things she says while running her foot against Motes ankle, and later unbuttoning her collar, lying on her back, and then belly. Further in the store she seduces Motes, and before bedding him admits: “...from the minute I set eyes on you I said to myself, that’s what I got to have. Just give me some of him! (86). Sabbath is a smart girl, and a determined one, but she is most definitely not the picture her name would imply.         There is also the character of Enoch. Enoch is the perfect portrait of harmless. He is alone in the town. In the bible Enoch is the son of Cain. It is also the name of the first city built and named in the scripture. It means to be dedicated, or disciplined. In wordplay, Enoch is not unlike Eunuch, a castrated man, a man whose testicles do not function. Also one who is ineffectual, and powerless. Enoch tears through the town with monotonous routine, and even his occasional fits of anger and violence (i.e., stealing a mummified body from a museum, attacking a man in an ape costume and stealing it to wear himself) really affect no one but himself. Enoch is somewhat of a nonentity to people. If he is noticed, he is held with disgust. The waitress in the diner loathes him: “Although Enoch came here every night, she had never learned to like him... Instead of filling his orders she began to fry bacon....and there was no one to eat the bacon but her (99).” The woman he buys his daily malted milkshake from refers to him as a “son of a bitch”, she says: “...that pus marked bastard slurping through that straw is a goddamn son of a bitch... (47).         For O’Connor names are more than titles. In “Good Country People” Mrs. Freeman is bound by her inability to see beyond the social aspects of people. Therefor she is not “free”. Joy Hopewell, in the story, is an ill and angsty figure. She is Joyless. Hopeless, and Unwell. In “The Life you save may be your own” Mr. Shiftlet is a transient, therefor a Shifter.” In the end of the story, as he leaves we see a storm welling behind him: “A cloud...shaped like a turnip had descended over the sun....the turnip continued slowly to descend (Life You Save 62)”. This idea of a Turnip rolls into the character of Mrs. Turpin, from Revelation. A Turnip is a bitter vegetable that grows from the ground. It thrives in dirt. It is also a symbol, pointing downward into hell.         Mrs. Turnip mentally degrades the people around her. She is very critical. On the other hand, she sees herself as a delightful, and wonderful person. A Turnip roots in dirt, as a pig would eat and root in dirt and feces. She refers to the dirty child in the waiting room when she says: “Their [pigs] cleaner than some children I’ve seen (Revelation 410)”. Later in the story, we see Mrs. Turpin taking out her anger, and confusion on the poor squalling pigs she keeps. It’s the double edged sword that O’Connor rides throughout her literature.                          Mary Grace is a key figure in Revelation. Mary is the Mother of God, and Jesus is her gift. That gift is Grace. But, O’Connors Mary Grace is an angsty, restless young girl. She is unattractive, and intelligent. This is a common theme in O’Connor, as she must have been the same girl through out her life with lupus. Afflicted, and intelligent at the same time. Mary Grace regards Mrs. Turpin with much disgust. At the height of Mrs. Turpins hypocrisies Mary Grace lashes out in violence towards the woman, and sends her message in her final words: “Go back to hell where you came from, you old wart hog (Revelation 416)”         The image is of hell, hogs, and hypocrisies. It’s a distortion of names, of the way Mrs. Turpin sees herself, of the way the world works. When you love God, and he strikes you down, smites you, even, with an affliction like terminal disease, you see the world through skewed eyes. As a writer, you create that world with imagery and symbolism.