Good Country People Analysis

“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

Prior to World War II, many women were unemployed, due to the Great Depression which had started a decade before. With men always getting preference for jobs, there were very few jobs left for women. Consequently, not only were many occupations were reserved for men, but men were also paid wages up to five times higher for the same task as women. Some states also barred married women from holding jobs. However during World War II, America produced at an efficiency which was higher than ever. This meant that the women had an increasing number of jobs. Jobs in the public sector opened up. Since 1939, women progressively changed the idea of patriarchy and the cliché thinking of an average woman in the United States to be a wife and mother.

"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.

During World War II there were many job opportunities for women. The war opened new doors during a time of depression. As husbands, fathers, sons, and brothers went to fight in the war the women went to work at factories, offices, and even on military bases. These women went to work in paying jobs that were usually for men. Many women became journalists, photographers and broadcasters. They were covering the biggest story ever, the men that were at war and the women that were at home doing the man’s work. Women even joined the military. They were not put in front line positions but they did important jobs and many lost their lives. During the war it was not only the white

Hulga showed that she is a strong female character by being a highly educated woman. She obtained a doctorate in Philosophy, a field that is not common chosen by women. Although her mother may disagree, Hulga’s career choice shows that she does not adhere to society’s idea of an educated woman. O’Connor’s decision to

“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”.

Kiara Liz Correa English 221September 19th, 2017 Good Country PeopleIn the story, Good Country People written by Flannery O’Connor, Hulga Hopewell lost her joy at the age of ten when she lost her leg and was diagnosed with a heart condition. Hulga isa thirty-two-year-old woman who is over educated and spends the rest of her life being miserableand doing everything in her power to irritate her mother and everyone around her. Although Hulga seems to want acceptance from her mother and her environment around her, with close reading we find out that she really doesn’t care about anything or anyone. The only thing she wants is to be superior, immature and bitter. Hulga Hopewell is nothing but someone who thinks she is above everyone because she believes that she is superior. She never bothers in trying to get to know the others as real people, if she had she would have realized that there was more to them that meets the eye. Her lack of interest in the other characters effectively isolates her from any meaningful relationship with other characters especially her mother. Hulga is very versed, though perhaps not as smart as she thinks she is. While one is tempted to see view Hulga as a weak individual, she sees herself as a strong and powerful, even imagining seducing Manley Pointer. She sees herself in such a position of power and “worldliness” that she declares herself as an atheist, and chooses to believein “nothing” making her a nihilist. Hulgas life is turned upside down, as she is confronted with Mr. Manley Pointer who is the one that holds power over her, and later realizes that the “power” she had was nothing more than an illusion. Hulga Hopewell is also very immature. Her acts of rebellion can be seen as a way for her wanting to be accepted, but she really just wants to annoy her mother and anyone around her. Hulga uses her handicap, a leg partially shot off during a hunting accident, as an excuse for stomping loudly around the house in hopes of irritating her mother. She also spends her time making sly comments about her mother and Mrs. Freemans daughter’s, who she calls Caramel and Glycerin just to spite both women. She never really acts like a thirty-two-year-old woman and doesn’t dress like one either,

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.

deceives her. “You ain’t so smart. I been believing in nothing ever since I was born!” “And then

Flannery O'Connor used a very different type of southern gothic writing style. Her writing had an unexpected turn of events and cliffhangers making the readers have to think about what the ending would be like. Two of her stories "Good Country People" and "A Good Man is Hard to Find" both display O'Conners religious Catholic background. At the end, the turn of events for these stories is drastic, for example, in "A Good Man is Hard to Find" the Grandmother gets shot dead. While in "Good Country People" Joy loses her dignity, pride, and faith in men. They both change a great deal when abandoned hopeless.

There are many themes within Flannery O’Connor’s short story “Good Country People”. Religion is definitely one of the more prominent themes that the story holds. Like most of O’Connor’s works, it plays a big part in the actions or characteristics of the main characters. This is all on the surface however. The more important and less accentuated theme is the various facades the characters create for themselves. These facades prevent them from facing their true “grotesque” selves. These facades also hide their weaknesses that they have no wish to face ort just can’t understand. People must be comfortable with every aspect of themselves, because certain people, who in this story

Hulga, limited by her disabilities of being handicapped and her weak heart as she grew older, her life has been restricted to the home she grew up in which is why she distants herself from everyone and has only sticked with her belief in philosophy. Mrs. Hopewell’s character is based on her simplistic view of everyone either being a “good country people” whom are described as poorer than landowners like mrs Hopewell and Hulga or “white trash” describes as poor and uncultured. She is just like Hulga in the sense that she believes she is superior to everyone else and thinks she can distinguish between these two classes which are the hard working people or the untrustworthy people. Mrs. Hopewell has never really let Hulga grow up and still treats her as if she was still a ten year old because she does think philosophy would open many doors for her daughter and has never accepted her the way she is. Hulga has all the education and degrees to start her own life but her mother is the cause of this pause in her life.

Moreover, the grandma from “A Good Man is Hard to Find” and Hulga from “Good Country People” parallel in several ways. While the grandma dresses as an upper-class lady, believing to be morally superior to everyone, Hulga also believes she is better than most people because of her PhD. in philosophy. Their feelings of isolation coupled with the two’s moral superiority complexes make them supremely scathing women to be reckoned with, and most of the words that come out of their mouth are harsh with little regard to how their ill-chosen words affect others. However, one stark difference separates the two characters. Hulga possesses an insane amount of knowledge and has no one to converse with.