Good Country People Character Analysis

Most of Flannery O'Connor's stories seem to contain the same elements: satirical and regional humor, references to God and Christianity, violent similes and metaphors, lots of stereotypical characters, grotesque humor and often focuses a lot of description on character's clothes and faces. However, one of the most important elements of O'Connor's "Good Country People" is the relevance of names. Her choice of names seem to give indications about the personalities of the characters and seem to be more relevant to the story than what the reader would commonly overlook as simply being stock character names. Mrs. Hopewell losing her "joy" (both her daughter and her

The two most important souls in the story "Good Country People" belong to Joy-Hulga and

“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.

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

Thesis Statement: In Flannery O'Connor's short story "Good Country People," the expulsion of the outside world allows for more emphasis on the symbolic nature of each of the active characters.

The short story “Good Country People” wrote by Flannery O’Connor is a story that shows many underlining themes about the people around us. One of the many underlying themes is that it shows that people are not always who they say they are, we see this when Hulga/Joy meets the Bible salesman, Manley Pointer. Also, people should not judge others by their looks, we see this when Hulga and Mrs. Hopewell think they are superior over everyone else. Throughout the story, Flannery O’Connor uses his description of characters, dialogue, and the use of the reality he created to show the underlying theme of the story.

“Good Country People,” is a classic example of the use of irony as a technique for imbuing a story with meaning. Irony works on many different levels through the piece. Examples of this range from O’ Connors use of clearly ironic dialogue to the dramatic irony that unfolds between Manley and Joy-Hulga. However the most obvious examples can be found in O’Connor’s characterization of these, “Good Country People.” The technique of irony is applied prominently to the character’s names and behaviors to present the contradictions between their expectations and their reality. O’Connor uses her characters to explore common notions regarding, “good” and “bad” people. Using their expectations for one another, O’Connor ultimately expose their

In Good Country People, the characters that experienced the tragedy can easily fit within either the protagonist or the antagonist box. In the story, the three main characters within the tragic event are a kind old mother, an arrogant disable college grad, and a seemingly simple bible salesman. After O’Connor gives the initial description of the characters, the characteristics that are usually associated with protagonist and antagonist.

Why are men consider to be the more dominate sex? Women throughout history have proven that they can do anything a man can and more, but still women are seen as lesser. Feminist believe in equality between the sexes. Author Flannery O’Connor applied feministic thinking in her story “Good Country People.” The story describes a mother and daughter experience when a young Bible salesman approaches them. Hulga and her mother, Mrs. Freeman, make excellent subjects for the story’s feministic theme. “Good Country People” shows the feminism by including a strong female character, acceptance of opposite gender roles, and symbolism for the male sex.

Good Country People by Flannery O’Connor is a story with a lot of ironic elements in it. These are mostly found in the way that the characters depict themselves in contrast of how they truly are. For example, Mrs. Hopewell says that she has no bad qualities of her own, but she is a constant liar is an how she happened to hire the Freemans in the first place and how they were a godsend to her and how she had them for four years. The reason for keeping them for so long was because they were not trash” (O’Connor 247). Mrs. Hopewell is not the only hypocrite in this story; Manley Pointer is also incredibly hypocritical, fake, and manipulative. He depicts himself as a “Bible salesmen”, but in reality he is a con artist. When Hulga opens up his Bible, she sees a flask of whiskey, cards, and condoms in it. This would be seen as incredibly offensive and sinful to a Christian. According to Thomas F. Gusset, “Joy/Hulga begins to discover that the Bible

To begin with, Flannery O’Connor’s “Good Country People,” describe the live of a mother, Mrs. Hopewell and her daughter, Joy and the irony of their relationship. During this time women were not seen as equal to men as they are in today’s southern society. Women had more of a domestic role, while men were educated and worked to support the family. In O’Connor’s “Good Country People”, the characters in the story provide evidence where they are stereotyping others. For example, the text states “She could not help but feel it would have been better if the child had not taken the Ph.D.” (O’Connor 370). This statement is from Mrs. Hopewell this statement shows how she thinks that education have not had positive affect on Hugla also, she does not have much desire for her daughter education. Than eventually stating “it

Even with all the annoyances from Mrs. Freeman, Mrs. Hopewell is willing to endure it because they were good country people to her. Hulga was a very quiet and troubled woman. Oliver Kate explains that, “Joy-Hulga's physical afflictions--her heart condition, her poor eyesight, and her artificial leg--symbolize her emotional, intellectual, and spiritual impairments.”(Kate 234) Due to Hulgas medical problems she could not enjoy many things in life, like teaching philosophy and interacting with others outside the house. She was very detached from other people. Hulga had to be like this to protect herself. The world can be a very cruel place, where they could of judged her because of her fake leg, glasses and heart issues. She was afraid and hand no trust for others outside of her house.

My initial response to the title was this story must be about good old country folks, had no idea it would turn out to be so interesting and weird at the same time. As I began to read about Mrs. Hopewell and Mrs. Freeman which I thought were the main characters, which little did I know that Joy/Hulga and poor old country boy Manley would steal the spotlight, who would think to come up with such an Ironic twist? In the beginning they introduce Mrs. Hopewell, Mrs. Freeman and her daughters Glynese and Carramae who were consider to be two of the finest country girls around. Mrs. Hopewell was hoping Glynese and Carramae would influence her mean and ungrateful daughter Joy who legally changed

In the story “Good Country People” Flannery O’Connor writes about a family that has two different views on life. The characters in this story are Mrs. Hopewell, her daughter, Joy/Hulga, their housekeeper, Mrs. Freeman and Manley Pointer who is a travelling bible salesman. This story is set in the mid nineteenth century in the South. In this story, Mrs. Hopewell is a classic southern Christian woman. She is a simple optimist who confronts adversity simply by hoping for the best. Her philosophy of cheer irritates, her daughter, Joy, who retaliates by legally changing her name to the ugliest one she can think of: Hulga. Joy lost her leg in a hunting accident when she was ten. She compensated for her disability by getting an education.

Flannery O’Connor was an American woman writer who wrote only two novels and 32 short stories and, yet she represented a significant voice in American literature. Flannery O 'Connor was once asked to name the primary influences on her life, and she replied, "Probably ... being a Catholic, and a Southerner, and a writer". These three influences are prominent in O 'Connor’s writings as she shows her faith and Southern identity. She typically wrote in a Southern Gothic style and relied on local settings and grotesque characters for her stories provoking her readers to examine questions of morality and ethics. In her short stories, “A Good Man is Hard to Find” and “Good Country People”, Flannery O’Connor uses characters and their conflicts to reveal a deeper understanding of morality and ethics in these two significant works of literature.