Flannery O’Connor was born on March 25, 1925, in Savannah, Georgia. She was an American writer. O’Connor wrote two novels and 32 short stories in her life time. She was a southern writer who wrote in Southern Gothic style. In the Article, Female Gothic Fiction Carolyn E. Megan asks Dorothy Allison what Southern Gothic is to her and she responded with, “It’s a lyrical tradition. Language. Iconoclastic, outrageous as hell, leveled with humor. Yankees do it, but Southerners do it more. It’s the grotesque.”(Bailey 1) Later she was asked who one of her role models was and she stated that Flannery O’Connor was one she could relate to. One of O’Connor’s stronger works was “Good Country People” which was published in 1955.
“Good Country People” is about a mother and daughter that live on a farm. The mother Mrs. Hopewell gets assistance for the farm from her tenants Mr. Freeman, which was in charge of the farming, and Mrs. Freeman which is a really nice but noisy woman. Mrs. Hopewell had a daughter by the name of Hulga originally but since Hulga disliked her name so much she asks everyone to call her Joy. Mrs. Freeman refused to do such a thing. Later in the story a bible salesman, by the name of Manley Pointer came to the home to sell the family a Bible. They were not interested in Bibles especially because Hulga was Atheist but it seemed that Hulga and Manley might have hit it off immediately but doesn’t last long. “Good Country People” features a protagonist who learns about her own emotional and spiritual short comings through an encounter with a dishonest Bible salesman. In this way the story invites us to question traditional definitions of “trust.”
Mrs. Hopewell and Hulga had a hard time trusting others. Flanner O’Connor explains...
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... in love and trust.
Works Cited
Flannery, O’Connor. “Good Country People”. The Norton Introduction to Literature. Ed. Kelly
J. Mays. 11th Ed. New York: Norton, 2013. 1910-74. Print.
Flannery, O’Connor. “A Good Man is hard to find”. The Norton Introduction to Literature. Ed.
Kelly J. Mays. 11th Ed. New York: Norton, 2013. 1910-74. Print.
BAILEY, PEGGY DUNN. "Female Gothic Fiction, Grotesque Realities, and Bastard Out Of
Carolina: Dorothy Allison Revises The Southern Gothic." Mississippi Quarterly 63.1/2 (2010):269-290. Academic Search Complete. Web. 4 May 2014.
Oliver, Kate. "O’Connor’s GOOD COUNTRY PEOPLE." Explicator 62.4 (2004): 233-236.
Academic Search Complete. Web. 4 May 2014.
Bosco, Mark. "Consenting to love: autobiographical roots of 'Good Country People'." The
Southern Review 41.2 (2005): 283+. Academic OneFile. Web. 4 May 2014.
“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.
The story, “Good Country People,” by Flannery O’Connor, is a third person limited narration which means the reader can only look into the mind of only a few of the characters. Those characters are Mrs. Hopewell and Hulga, or Joy. Schmoop discusses a deeper understanding about the narrator of the story.
The story is center around a small cast. In it Mrs. Hopewell and her daughter Joy, who had her name changed to Hulga, live on a farm with their tenants Mrs. Freeman’s and her two daughters- Glynese and Carramae. Interestingly, Mrs. Hopewell calls the Freeman Girls, Glycerin and Caramel while refusing to call her own daughter anything but Joy. “Good County People”, is told through the interactions of this dysfunctional gaggle of ladies, and their chance encounter with the Bible selling con-artist Manley Pointer. It is a story of a few not so, “Good Country People.”
Douglas, Ellen. "O'Connor's 'A Good Man is Hard to Find.'" Contemporary Literature Criticism. Eds. Carolyn Riley and Phyllis Carmel Mendelson. Detroit, MI: Gale, 1976. Vol. 6. 381.
To conclude, Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man Is Hard To Find” is filled with irony and it is what makes the story so interesting. Without the use of these ironies the story would have been very different for the readers. Flannery O’Connor uses irony to enhance her writing and to push the readers to want to read further. She also uses this irony to explain some of her own concerns about the human condition. Verbal, dramatic, and cosmic ironies are all present in Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man Is Hard To Find” and are used skillfully by the author to enhance the reader’s experience.
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.
Boudreaux, Armond. "There Are No Good Men To Find: Two Stories By Flannery O’Connor." Explicator 69.3 (2011): 150. Biography Reference Bank (H.W. Wilson). Web. 1 Nov. 2013.
A story without style is like a man without personality: useless and boring. However, Flannery O’Connor incorporates various different styles in her narratives. Dark humor, irony, and symbolism are perhaps the utmost powerful and common styles in her writing. From “Revelation” and “Good Country People” to “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” all of O’Connor’s stories consist of different styles in writing.
O'Connor, Flannery. "A Good Man Is Hard to Find." The Story and Its Writer An Introduction to Short Fiction. 8th ed. Boston: Bedford / St. Martin's, 2011. 1042-053. Print.
1) O’Connor, Flannery, A Good Man Is Hard to Find (Women Writers: Text & Contexts Series). Rutgers University Press, 1993.
Flannery O’Connor’s short story “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” is about the misfortunes a family experiences while embarking on a vacation, but it goes further to depict the divergence between the superficial conflict in everyday life and the true battles in life threatening situations. O’Connor’s use of tone, syntax, and diction helps to develop the characters and illustrate the struggle of good versus evil, shedding light on the harsh reality of the prevalence and depth of real evil.
O’Conner, Flannery. “Good Country People.” Literature An Introduction To Fiction, Poetry, And Drama. Eds. X.J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia 3rd ed. New York Longman, 2003. 247-261
O'Connor, Flannery. ?Good Country People.? A Good Man is Hard to Find and Other Stories. Comp. Flannery O'Connor. San Diego: Harcourt Brace & Company, [2006?].
Flannery O’ Connor’s story: “A Good Man is Hard to Find” is the tale of a vacation gone wrong. The tone of this story is set to be one irony. The story is filled with grotesque but meaningful irony. I this analysis I will guide you through the clues provided by the author, which in the end climax to the following lesson: “A Good Man” is not shown good by outward appearance, language, thinking, but by a life full of “good” actions.
However, not all characteristics of the characters are bad; it is that a mixture of good and bad is found in most of the characters. Two authors who express the Southern Gothic writing style are William Faulkner, who wrote “A Rose for Emily,” and Flanner O Conner, the author of “Good Country People” and “A Good Man is Hard to Find.” A great example of this type of writing is “A Good Man is Hard to Find” by Flannery O' Conner. It is a story about a family trip gone that has turned out bad, a selfish grandma causes her entire family to be stranded after the car crashes and is put into a ditch.