Referred to by Mason Tarwater and his great-nephew Francis Marion Tarwater as "the welfare woman," Bernice Bishop is mother to the mentally disabled boy, Bishop, and she is ex-wife to George Rayber. Bernice Bishop appears only in the past, in the novel's many flashbacks. It is learned in one of these flashbacks that Rayber attempted to "rescue" the young Tarwater from his uncle, that his wife accompanied him, and that she was repulsed by the boy's expressionless response to his great-uncle's violence; she declared that she could not live with him. Although Bernice is trained as a social worker, Bernice Bishop left Rayber after the birth of their "dim-witted" son in part because the son reminded her of her husband's uncle, Mason Tarwater. Rayber also recalls that Bernice has returned only.....
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