Symbolism In Good Country People

“Good Country People” by Flannery O’Connor is a wonderful example of theme, irony and symbolism in literature. In order to achieve this, the author focuses in on the key personality traits of each of the characters. First introduced, are two families of social classes that are divided by money, yet quite similar in some ways. Mrs. Hopewell, a mother and widow, lives in a neatly defined life of documented social correctness. Her daughter Hulga, who has changed her name from Joy, lives with her mother in only a physical sense. She sees herself above the country by the inheritance of a higher education. In this case, she has a PhD in Philosophy which actually discourages her mother and does nothing to ease her self imposed confinement in the “backwoods” setting. Mr. and Mrs. Freeman are introduced with their daughters Caramae and Glynese. The symbolism of the chosen names is clear, and the author places a great deal of emphasis on them.

Hulga lost her leg at the young age of ten, and being reminded for the entire episode, she is stripped of the capacity for both hope and joy. Hulga’s deformity, has helped shaped her as a character. She used to be insecure about her wooden leg, but now she believes it defines her quality, besides her education. She takes care of it by herself and never lets anyone see it. Therefore, this type of attitude and the lack of faith in God is represented as the cause of her to go donwhill, since she lets Manley take off her leg, she becomes very susceptible. She doesn’t know how to live without it, she panics, and Manley ends up stealing it and abandoning her in the loft.

Hulga’s education is connected to her lack of faith in God, especially in the mind of her mother. She tells Manley that she doesn’t ...

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...ose words she underlines with a blue pencil: “science wishes to know nothing of nothing.” In denying God and asserting the belief of Nothing, Hulga lacks the ability to recognize Manley for who he is because, to her evil has no more meaning than God has. This “innocent” view allows Manley to spiritually take advantage of her, symbolized by him taking her wooden leg. When she pleads, “Aren’t you just good country people?” he replies, “I hope you don’t think 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!” This last word is very ironic, for without a leg and without a soul and/or belief in God, Hulga can go nowhere. Through him she falls into the world of experience, knowing that evil does infact exist, that there is meaning beyond the nothing she embraced at the beginning of the story.