Flannery O’Connor’s short story “Good Country People” is about four main characters and their misconceptions about one another and life in general.
Country people are usually considered to be humble and hard-working individuals and Flannery O’Connor uses the concept as an ironic title in her story “Good Country People”. The story opens with a description of Mrs. Freeman who is the wife of Mrs. Hopewell’s most recent tenant farmer. Mrs. Hopewell was hesitant in hiring her due to hearing from Mrs. Freeman’s reference that Mrs. Freeman was “the nosiest woman ever to walk the earth”, “she’s got to be into everything”, “she’ll want to know all your business” (2525); however, Mrs. Hopewell still hired the Freemans as she had no other applicants and made it clear that “she would see to it that she was into everything- she would give her the responsibility of everything, she would put her in charge” (2525) making Mrs. Freeman so busy that it would give her no opportunity to be a busybody. Mrs. Hopewell, a divorcee with an optimist but naive outlook has a well-educated daughter who is in her thirties, Joy, who is disabled and a bitter person.
Later on into the story, a self-proclaimed Christian and country boy, Manly Pointer, came to the Hopewell Farm to sell bibles. He sold himself neatly to Mrs. Hopewell who believed he was a good country boy he portrayed himself to be however thought he was boring. Pointer then lures Joy to the barn the next day and while Joy thought she was going to seduce and educate Pointer, he had his own less than admirable agenda.
Mrs. Hopewell is an optimist, which we can see reflected in the name chosen for her by O’Connor. Mrs. Hopewell uses a lot of clichés and truisms in...
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...t of the earth” (2529). Mrs. Hopewell is known for her clichés, an ideal cliché for this story “Good Country People” should be “don’t judge a book by its cover”. For Mrs. Hopewell had considered the Manly Pointer “simple” which reflects her ignorance towards evil in the world for he had caused her daughter severe mental and physical anguish. Such ignorance was Mrs. Hopewell’s greatest fault of allowing evil doings and not protecting her daughter as she claimed of treating her like a child. Each character were perceived to be good or showed certain behavioral signs. Until further analysis were done in understanding how each character was “broken” in their way.
Works Cited
O'Connor, Flannery. "The Norton Anthology American Literature." Good Country People. Ed. Nina Baym and Robert S. Levine. 8th ed. New York City: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2013. 2524-37. Print.
The first character we encounter is Mrs. Freeman. She is the wife of Mrs. Hopewell's tenant farmer. She is a very outspoken woman, and "she [can] never be brought to admit herself wrong on any point" (O'Connor 180). Mrs. Freeman is a gossip; she is nosy and she "ha[s] a special fondness for the details of secret infections, hidden deformities, assaults upon children" (O'Connor 183).
“Good Country People” is a story about Joy Hopewell, a very well educated young woman living in the rural south. Joy lost a leg in a hunting accident when she was ten and since then had been forced to wear a wooden replacement. She also had a weak heart and it was this affliction that forced her to remain amongst these “good country people” whom she considered to be intellectual inferiors. Though she had great confidence in her intelligence she had very little self-esteem. Joys’ handicap made her feel ugly, so ugly that much to her mothers’ dismay, she had her name legally changed to the ugliest one she could think of, Hulga. One day a traveling bible salesman named Manley Pointer made a sales call and ended up having dinner with the family.
Hopewell’s daughter, Joy who renames herself to Hulga. Hulga who is also like Phoenix, a victim of circumstances, is highly educated, was shot in the leg while young, and thus has a wooden leg and is also sick in that she has a weak heart. Hulga, goes through these circumstances and takes them negatively, she is seen as not only rude but also always cross and insensitive to other people’s feelings or emotions an example of this is when she shouted at her mother, Mrs. Hopewell, at the table “Woman! Do you ever look inside? Do you ever look inside and see what you are not? God!” (Clugston,
O’connor, Flannery. "Good Country People" The Bedford Introduction To Literature, 5th ed. Ed, Michael Meyer. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s,1999. 393-406
Edwards, Jr., Bruce L. "O'Connor's 'Good Country People.'" Masterplots II-Short Story Series. Ed. Frank N. Magill. Pasedena, CA: Salem P, 1986. Vol. 2. 901-902.
The statement, “She had telephoned the man whose name they had given as a reference and he had told her that Mr. Freeman was a good farmer but that his wife was the noisiest woman ever to walk the earth” suggests, when the term farmer is used, that this story takes place in a farm town. Also the way Mom describes herself can lead the reader to think that she works on a farm herself. She says, “I wear flannel nightgowns to bed and overalls during the day. I can kill and clean a hog as mercilessly as a man” (744). From the way she describes her working hands to explaining how she slaughtered a cow, the reader understands that she has a farm that they live on and is an extremely hard worker. The setting in these stories are used in a way that impact the theme tremendously because the individuals who go to college are both from small rural communities where opportunities like this do not happen very often especially during this time, which is probably around the mid to late 1950s and 1960s. While, in the story “Good Country People”, a comment is made about the make of a car when the author notes that, “She said he owned a ’55 Mercury but that Glynese said she would rather marry a man with only a ’36 Plymouth who would be married by a preacher” (195). This statement can indicate that the time frame that ”Good Country People” happens in is around 1955 because the way it is talked about the older
Religion is a pervasive theme in most of the literary works of the late Georgia writer Flannery O'Connor. Four of her short stories in particular deal with the relationship between Christianity and society in the Southern Bible Belt: "A Good Man Is Hard to Find," "The River," "Good Country People," and "Revelation." Louis D. Rubin, Jr. believes that the mixture of "the primitive fundamentalism of her region, [and] the Roman Catholicism of her faith . . ." makes her religious fiction both well-refined and entertaining (70-71). O'Connor's stories give a grotesque and often stark vision of the clash between traditional Southern Christian values and the ever-changing social scene of the twentieth century. Three of the main religious ingredients that lend to this effect are the presence of divine meanings, revelations of God, and the struggle between the powers of Satan and God.
Bandy, Stephen C. "One of my babies": The Misfit and the Grandmother in Flannery O'Connor's short story 'A Good Man Is Hard to Find'. Studies in Short Fiction; Winter 1996, v33, n1, p107(11)
In Flannery O’Connor’s stories, “Good Country People”, “Everything that Rises Must Converge”, ”A Good Man is Hard to Find”, and “The Life You Save May Be Your Own”, there are many similar characters and situations. Few, if any of the characters are likeable, and most of them are grotesque. Two of the stories have characters that view themselves as superior in one way or another to those around them, and in some cases these characters experience a downfall, illustrating the old proverb, “Pride goeth before a fall” (King James Bible ,Proverbs 16:18). Two of the stories include a character that has some type of disability, three of the stories showcase a very turbulent relationship between a parent and child, and three of the stories contain a character that could easily be described as evil.
The names that O’Connor used throughout the story “Good Country People” gives the reader a quick glimpse into the character’s personality and their purpose in the story. From Mrs. Freeman as free to Mrs. Hopewell as hope, O’Connor placed a great deal of thought into each of the character’s names that were used in story. Her ultimate purpose for choosing each of the names was to a affirm Christian values, while at the same time lowering the view of the nonspiritual way of
O'Connor crafts the story so that the plot does not actually begin until insight into the characters has been provided. The limited omniscience persona of the narrative voice alternates between Joy and her mother, Mrs. Hopewell. The exposition provides an understanding of how the characters have developed the personality traits they possess when the drama begins to take place, which is on a Friday evening during the Spring sometime during the mid-1950s. The exposition demonstrates how Joy develops the social and philosophical assumptions that deeply affect the way she sees herself and relates to others.
Flannery O’Connor's perception of human nature is imprinted throughout her various works. This view is especially evident in the short stories, “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” and “Revelation.” She conveys a timeless message through the scope of two ignorant, southern, upper class women. In “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” O’Connor presents readers to a family who is going on a road trip with their selfish grandmother. She is a religious woman who does not follow the set standards that she preaches. Similar characteristics are exposed in “Revelation.” As the self centered Mrs. Turpin sits in the waiting room, she contemplates on her own status with God. Nevertheless, she still commits the sin of judging others. In both of O’Connor’s short stories, these controversial protagonists initially put up a facade in order to alienate themselves from their prospective societies. Although the grandmother and Mrs. Turpin both believe in God, O’Connor utilizes theme to expose that they also convince themselves that they can take on His role by placing judgement on people who, at the most fundamental level, are in the same category as them.
Flannery O’Connor’s A Good Man Is Hard to Find is one of the most well-known short stories in American history. A Good Man Is Hard to Find is a disturbing short story that exemplifies grace in extremity as well as the threat of an intruder. The story tells of an elderly grandmother and her family who embark on a road trip to Florida. The grandmother is a stubborn old woman with a low sense of morality. While on the trip, the grandmother convinces her son to take a detour which results in a broken down car and an encounter with a convicted fugitive, The Misfit. Although the grandmother pleads for mercy, The Misfit kills off the rest of her family. Through the grace she finds in her extreme circumstance, the grandmother calls The Misfit her own and implores him to spare her life. The Misfit does not oblige her and states after her death, “She would have been a good woman if it had been someone to shoot her every day of her life.” Through Flannery O’Connor’s disturbing and shocking display of the grandmother’s demise, she gives the reader a sense of the threatening power of an intruder and the idea of extreme situations bringing about a state of grace. The reason for such a powerful work may have resulted from Flannery O’Connor’s religious upbringing as well as the state of the nation at the time.
Throughout this story it appears that there are two distinctly different sides of Hulga Hopewell. One side is that of Hulga large, brooding, and rude. The other side however, is softer and much more vulnerable. That side is Joy Hopewell. By using these two names together O’Conner creates a unique picture of this character. The revelation that Hulga’s real name is Joy gives the reader some insight and helps the reader to see the softer side of Hulga more easily. By using something as simple as a name in this story the author creates deeper meaning for each character.
Violence, Humanity, Grace. These are three reoccurring themes throughout Flannery O’Connors short stories. As one looks at O’Connor’s stories one starts to see a pattern, or a similarity between each of the stories. One might describe it as “getting to know a personality” (Mays 419). As we focus on three stories, A Good Man is Hard to Find, Everything That Rises Must Converge, and “Good Country People”, by American fiction writer Flannery O’Connor we start to see distinct characteristics. O’Connor’s stories are set in the deep south where racism is often times prevalent. O’Connor’s characters often find themselves in difficult situations which can even be tragic. Most of her stories start out on a happier