Analysis Of Good Country People

“Good Country People” is a short story written by the Modernist writer Flannery O’Connor. According to The Critics, “Good Country People” is a bildungsroman where the main character, Joy, experiences a brief journey that matures her view of the world. Joy or “Hulga” is a well educated, philosophical woman of thirty-two,but as the story begins, she is portrayed as an immature adult whose maturity level has been stunted due to a childhood accident that left her emotionally scarred and physically disabled. Due to her physical disability ( the loss of her leg), Joy does not have true experience concerning society outside of her home. Her lack of social interaction will become her Achilles’ heel that ultimately teaches her a lesson concerning society and stereotypes. By the end of the story, Joy’s abundance of knowledge is irrelevant when she is conned by Manley Pointer and left immobile in the loft of a barn deep within a forest. Besides being a bildungsroman, O’Connor also incorporates themes of the Modernist movement into this short work such as isolation, alienation, loss of control, and incoherence of the modern world.

The short story Good Country People was written by O’Connor. The story introduces us to well-educated a woman who was thirty-two years old. This woman has an artificial leg which was shot off in a hunting accident when she was ten. She went to college and earned a doctorate in philosophy. She has a heart condition; so she cannot work and has to live at home with her mother. The name given to her is Joy but she changed her name to Hulga. She mocks her mother who treats her like child even though she is past her childhood years.

“Good Country People” by Flannery O’Connor is a short story told in third person omniscient point of view. The story contains a lot of irony, symbolism, imagery, and many more literary devices. Flannery O’Connor’s purpose was to demonstrate how “good country people” are not so “good.” Instead, they were categorized as “trash” and “good.” The short story interprets how the characters are contradictory and how women are portrayed in 1955 as well as today’s society.

Flannery O’Connor brings a negative perception of southern culture in her two stories “A Good Man is Hard to Find” and “Good Country People.” The characters “grandmother” and “Mrs. Hopewell” have similar views when it comes to social class, yet they differ in their feelings towards family. O’Connor exposes a self-righteous temperament within these two characters as they represent the high-class southern culture.

Everyone wants to believe that they are beautiful. For this reason, we tend to seek out that approval from others including our parents, friends, and other loved ones. Flannery O'Connor's story, "Good Country People," focuses on this particular theme. In her narrative, a young girl named Joy Hopewell longs for her mother's approval. When she does not find it, Joy begins to believe that she is unworthy of anyone's admiration. This basic premise allows for Manley Pointer to easily win Joy's trust. Flannery O'Connor includes this string of events in order to show the significant role parents play in developing their children's self-esteem, as well as reveal that even though Joy Hopewell begins to believe that she is not beautiful, she

Flannery O’Connor introduces her reader’s too unique short stories. They are “Good Country People” and “A Good Man is Hard to Find”, having too similar characters in different setting, but with the same symbolic meaning. The comparison between Hugla from “Good Country People” to the grandmother in “A Good Man Is Hard to find” is interesting, because they both suffer the same fate. In every short story O’Connor has created a intellectual individual who comes to a realization that their beliefs in there ability to control their lives and the lives of other are false. They enviably become the vulnerable, whereas they assumed it would be different. O’Connor has placed two misguide characters, that deem themselves to be manipulative and compulsive. At the end up of each short story they become vulnerable. Hugla from “Good Country People” and the grandmother from “A Good

"Good Country People" by Flanner O’Connor is an excellent example of the effective use of irony and character development. From start to finish there is a steady progression of irony that stems from the title of Good Country People. Some instances of irony are blatant, but others need a closer reading to find. It’s amazing the complexity of the characters that occurs in such a short span of pages. The success of “Good Country People” comes not only from O’Connor’s use of irony but also from the interplay among and the complexity of her main characters.

"We all know that education, more than anything else, improves our chances of building better lives," said the great Nelson Mandela. The recurring theme of using education being used as power is significantly prevalent in the short stories Good Country People by Flannery O'Connor, and Everyday Use by Alice Walker. In the short story Good Country People, Joy (the protagonist, later referred to as Hulga) holds the center of attention. She has been exceptionally educated. In fact, she holds a doctoral degree in philosophy. She holds a reputation of being extremely intelligent, capable of taking on some of the most challenging tasks that the world has to offer. With her formal education, she feels as though she has learned everything about life

From an hour of watching TV, you may see two commercials telling you to embrace yourself. Society teaches us to embrace who we are and dress how we want to be expressed. Yet, there is an equally influential part of society that teaches us to suppress certain aspects of our lives. So where do we, as people, stand on this complicated issue? Do we express only the good parts of ourselves and hide all the negative parts, or can we do more and express both the positive and negative aspects of our lives. No matter what you choose to believe you too can relate to the Bible salesman. People either choose to show what they believe in or choose to hide what they truly prioritize.

The Mrs. Hopewell was mesmerized by the charm of the Bible salesman. She thought he was “good country people,” but it wasn’t until Hulga spent time with Manley that we learned his true personality. Manley’s name is symbolism for exactly what it says, masculity. Hulga was a strong woman, but it wasn’t until she allowed herself to be vulnerable to a man that she became weak. When he removed her glasses, he left her blind to her surroundings and to the truth. He took advantage of her. He tried to make her vulnerable by forcing her to say that she loved him, even though she clearly was not ready, and then making her prove her love for him by removing her artificial leg. If Hulga had stayed true to herself and not allowed herself to be manipulated by a man, she would have seen passed his lies. This situation proves that failure to stick to feministic thinking can allow woman to be controlled by

“Good Country People” is a story written by Flannery O’Connor in 1955. It is a story written about four main characters; Mrs. Hopewell the overprotective mother, and Mrs. Freeman the helping hand, Manley Pointer the bible and Joy Hulga the dependent scholar. Mrs. Hopewell is Joy’s mother and Mrs. Freeman is there maid. Manley is the bible salesman’s who goes town to town scamming people. The story talks about good country people and who are considered good country people. As soon as Joy was old enough and away from her mother, she changed her name is Hulga. Joy Hulga has a problem with not being able to accept that the world has good and bad people. Joy Hulga has a chip on her shoulder about everything that transpire throughout “Good Country People”. Joy Hulga’s unapologetic attitude, harsh treatment from others and belief in people bring about her downfall in “Good Country People”.

The purpose of this essay is to correlate the theme of three different stories that had been read. I decided to choose the stories “Good Country People”, “Hills Like White Elephants”, and “The Storm.” I believe that the theme across these stories is to beware of the wolf in sheep clothing. In these stories, there was an antagonist that posed as a protagonist who even though their intentions may have looked well skin deep, the underlying intentions against the main character were not of good intent. I will describe certain situations in each of the three stories that show the theme I have noted.

In “Good Country People” by Flannery O’Connor, Joy; a leading lady full of grace and elegance developed into a prideful yet lonely girl who longed for acceptance and love. She hid her desire to be accepted and loved by her immensely large pride. Joy’s pride blinded her from recognizing the vulnerability and victimism she held near with Manly Pointer. She became close to Manly Pointer due to the absence of acceptance of love and acceptance in her home. O’Connor exhibits the internal struggles of women through Joy; showing that one can not find pure joy and acceptance through worldly love but that one needs more. Manly Pointer brings the sense of more through his business of bible marketing, this business begins to show Joy what is needed to fill the void in her life.

Flannery O’Connor’s short story, “Good Country People”, reflects the long term effects of childhood trauma on both the child and the parent. The main character of “Good Country People” , Hulga, struggles with the adverse psychological effects of childhood trauma, including depression, spiritual instability, and a defiant nature. Hulga’s loss of limb during her childhood has obviously affected her physical state, but it has also completely altered her emotional development. These physical and emotional effects also contribute greatly to her lack of knowledge in romantic situations, leading her to a run in with the man who steals her leg. O’Connor has herself been assumed to suffer from apotemnophilia, a neurological disorder in which one longs to amputate a limb along with a desire for a range of many other disabilities, which are reflected in O’Connor’s characterization of Hulga. Hulga is a thirty-two year old woman who lost her leg when she was ten and has struggled to adjust in the social aspects of her life, and as a result gets swindled out of her love and her prosthetic leg by a man pretending to be a bible salesman. Hulga’s mother exhibits behaviors characteristic of a parent who has been unable to come to terms with her child’s disability, therefore she finds herself lacking in the ability to connect with Hulga.

Flannery O’Connor is an American short story writer and her short story “Good Country People” depicts Hulga, a highly educated woman and has a PhD, is being jerked around by an immoral bible salesman. “A good man is hard to find”, also written by O’Connor, is a short story of a grandmother and her family murdered by a horrible man who called “the misfit” during the road trip to Florida. Although “Good country people” and “a good man is hard to find” are written by the same author, many elements in those two stories cause them have similar themes in religion, misplaced trust and protagonist and antagonist.