A Critical Analysis of Characterization in “Good Country People” by Flannery O’Connor Published in 1955, “Good Country People” is a Southern Gothic short story by Flannery O’Connor set in mid-20th Century Rural Georgia. Told in the point of view of third person limited, the story is filled with complex characterization revolving around religious themes, and dark irony. The protagonist, Joy/Hulga is a thirty-two year old woman with an artificial leg and a heart condition that she feels keep her bound to her mother’s home. Throughout the story, the character of Joy/Hulga shifts from belligerent, intellectual hiding her insecurities behind her disability, to being stripped of what she considered to be the very essence of her being: her intelligence. …show more content…
“Joy had made it plain that if it had not been for this condition, she would be far from these red hills and good country people” (O’Connor 693). With her PhD in philosophy, her wooden leg, and her heart condition, Joy/Hulga uses her disabilities as a way to separate and shield herself from the world around her. When Hulga meets “Manley Pointer”, the Bible Salesman, she decides that she will seduce him. Believing that once they have sex, and he is left guilt-ridden, “she imagined that she took his remorse in hand and changed it into a deeper understanding of life. She took all his shame away and turned it into something useful” (O’Connor 699). Joy/Hulga’s entire self-worth is predicated on her view of her physical deformity. Her every relationship is tainted by her subconscious insecurities masquerading as intelligence. She rejects the very notion that she possesses any vulnerability when it comes to love or
In her short story “A Good Man is Hard to Find” Flannery O’Connor seems to portray a feeling that society as she saw it was drastically changing for the worse. O’Connor obvious displeasure with society at the time the story was written is most likely her religious and conservative upbringing in the “old south.” O’Connor shows her point of view through an old woman named the grandmother. She uses the grandmother to depict Evidence of society’s demise is woven into the story, and presented through an interesting generational gap between the old and the new (the grandmother and her family). O’Connor use of irony throughout the story is a clear representation of the way in which she portrays the events yet to come.
Flannery O'Connor's "Good Country People" is a story told through the examination of the relationships between the four main characters. All of the characters have distinct feelings about the others, from misunderstanding to contempt. Both Joy-Hulga, the protagonist, and Manley Pointer, the antagonist, are multi-faceted characters. While all of the characters have different levels of complexity, Joy-Hulga and Manley Pointer are the deepest and the ones with the most obvious facades.
Joy/Hulga has two items that are used alternately to describe her, the eyeglasses that counter her weak eyes and are a sign of her intellectuality, and the wooden leg that she wields through sound and appearance as a weapon against her mother’s solicitude. When Manley Pointer removes her glasses and steals her wooden leg, she is left totally weak and vulnerable. The Bible salesman himself uses the illusion of Bibles as a symbol. He has claimed to have a suitcase full of Bibles to sell, but his moral laxness is revealed when he opens the case to reveal two Bibles, one of which has a hidden
Hulga always tries to be perceived as being a stern person with an established set of ideas. "I don't have illusions," she says at one point. "I'm one of those people who see through to nothing."(112). Ironically, however, we see that this is false. Manly Pointer, the young bible salesman, easily manipulates Hulga and tricks her into believing that he actually liked her. Manly makes Hulga vulnerable when he asks for her wooden leg. In reality the reader can sense that in asking for the leg, Manly is asking her to submit herself to him body and soul. Hulga does so and thus becomes "entirely dependant on him" (113). Before giving up her leg, however, Hulga would have seen her self as far more superior than Manly on the basis of her being more knowledgeable than him, "She imagined that she took his remorse in hand and changed it into a deeper understanding of life. She to...
O’Connor’s work constantly contradicted itself; she wrote about the religion which she found fascinating but that same writing scorned the deeply religious and the church (Alexander). It is apparent through her writing that she showed contempt for those nihilistic hypocrites who preached religion but did not practice it, or thought that they “saw” the truth and it was not in religion; thus, this is the basis for many of the characters in her stories, including the character outline of Joy/Hulga in “Good Country People.” The people who the reader expects to be good are really bad, and those who are bad turn out to be good, if not a little worse for the wear for their experiences. This is a perfect correlation to Joy/Hulga and Manly Pointer
O'Connor, Flannery. "Good Country People." Literature: Reading, Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and the Essay. 3rd ed. Ed. Robert DiYanni. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1994. 297-310.
Good Country People by Flannery O'Connor Good Country People'; by Flannery O’Connor is an excellent example of irony in literature. From beginning to end it has a steady procession of irony, much of it based on the title of the story: “Good Country People.' ; In the beginning of the story we meet Mrs. Freeman, wife of the hired hand. She and her husband have been working for Mrs. Hopewell for four years.
The two stories share a common theme of conflict particularly from a personal level. In the short story by O’Connor “Good Country People” takes a keen interest in the personal convictions and perception of Hulga world. The reality of her internal conflict regarding her identity is witnessed through the turn of events and her attitudes towards life. All these project the war going on within her. On the other hand, the poem “blood” by Naomi is an expression of the personal anxieties and fears evading in her inner world regarding her identity in a foreign land. It is amazing how both authors try to reach a common ground by the end of their narrations about the main characters personal battles in understanding
“Good Country People” is a short story written by Flannery O’Connor. O’Connor writes with a unique style that makes the reader think on a deeper level about her reading. In this short story the title, “Good Country People,” is repeated over ten times. While it is not uncommon that a title is repeated in its text, the fact that it is repeated so often makes the reader wonder if it was on purpose. “Good Country People” is both the title of the story but also influences most of the action in the story as well. This text’s formal dimensions control the action in the story and give the reader a deeper meaning to try to understand.
Perception and appearance is everything, right? Or is it just a false production that was created with the intent to portray one’s self as something they are not? Similar to an illusion, the way things appear is not necessarily the same as reality. Especially after only a single encounter, the first impression of a circumstance or person can easily be deceiving to the observer. In a society that seems to be putting individuals’ appearances ahead of their spirits and interiors, it becomes very easy for individuals to wear a false mask and to walk around conducting a masquerade for others to see. This lack of belief in a true sense of self and the intention to deceive others demonstrates that a hollow belief system, whether religious or otherwise, can allow for someone to take advantage of another individual.
Flannery O'Connor's short story “Good Country People” is typically seen as one of many stories that depicts themes of the feminist movement. Many see the story as where a well-educated woman seeks to change gender roles and seek self-dependence. However, my interpretation of the story resulted in differing themes of the story. Contrary to popular readings, I find that Flannery O'Connor's "Good Country People" is used to delegitimize feminism while in other instances it portrays aspects of male dominance to insinuate that women need a man to be in control because women are not capable of taking care of themselves.
In “Good Country People”, the character Joy tries to reinvent herself as someone who knows everything. She does this because of the hunting accident she had when she was a child where her leg was blown off. She tries to educate everyone on what she thinks is right. She even changes her name to Hulga in order to show how she feels about herself on the inside. In the text it says, “She had arrived at it first purely on its ugly sound…she saw it as the name of her highest creative act.” (O’ Connor 2526 – 2527). Even though she puts up this front of being tough she is still vulnerable. While she does reinvent herself as Hulga she ultimately gets a reality check. She loses her leg to some creep because of her pride. Instead of seeing the signs, she decides she will educate this ignorant country boy. He proves to her that you do not need a college degree to believe in nothing. For example, in the text, the bible salesman says, “And I’ll tell you another thing Hulga,” he said, using the name as if he didn’t think much of
Hopewell's principles are however aggressively rejected by her daughter Hulga who intensionally changes her name legally from Joy to Hulga to annoy her mother and even wishes to be far away from 'good country people' that her mother has brought into her life, were it not for her heart condition (Sustana, p.1). According to Thorburn (p.4), Hulga is an anagram for the word 'laugh' which means that if her mother were knowledgeable and smart, she would not even be annoyed by the name. She often imagines herself disputing her mothers' clichés using her Ph.D. in philosophy and her atheism thoughts. However, her opposing ideas all seem to end up in nothingness just like her mother which drives them to the same level despite their different educational
Novelist, Flannery O’Connor, in her short story, “A Good Man Is Hard To Find,” describes the adventure of a southern family and their confrontation with an outlaw. O’Connor conveys a theme that suggests it is impossible to create a generalized definition of a goodman and that each reader withholds his or her own views of a good man; being derived from his or her own personal experiences. She establishes this indefinite idea by appealing to her readers with her impeccable use of details.
Due to this, Joy believed that she could seduce him and that he would be filled with remorse and regret afterward. However, when she was with Pointer in the barn, he revealed that he does not actually believe in that stuff; he only pretended that he did in order to make money and to give people a reason to trust him. “‘I hope you don’t think,’ he said in a lofty indignant tone, ‘that I believe in that crap! I may sell Bibles but I know which end is up and I wasn’t born yesterday and I know where I’m going!’”(546). This goes to show that while there are many people who claim to be religious, there are still some who believe in very immoral things. Recently during the March for Life, there were thousands of people participating in the annual protest. While a majority of them came from Christian families, there was a portion of people who were not religious that also joined the campaign to protect the lives of the unborn. On the other hand, people who claimed to be Christians were on the opposing side that was determined to keep the country pro-choice. This is a prime example that being religious does not automatically determine the morality of a