Good Country People, a Review and Analysis Essay

This particular literary device is so significant in this story because it explains why Joy is considered as weak as her mother. In addition, Joy’s leg had been removed due to a hunting accident that occurred when she was ten. She was also told she may live to see the age of forty-five because she had a weak heart. Therefore, she felt hopeless and no words of encouragement. In “Good Country People,” it states “All day Joy sat on her neck in a deep chair, reading. Sometimes she went for walks but she did not like dogs or cats or birds or flowers or nature or nice young men.” This statement exemplifies a hyperbole. O’Connor does this intentionally to demonstrate how much faith and confidence she had lost within herself to express to readers her particular role and actions in the story. O’Connor also uses ambiguity in the text. “Her name was really Joy but as soon as she was twenty-one and away from home, she had had it legally changed. Mrs. Hopewell was certain that she had thought and thought until she had hit upon the ugliest name in any language. Then she had gone and had the beautiful name, Joy, changed without telling her mother until after she had done it(O’Connor,274).” This statement displayed how Mrs. Hopewell was unsupportive as well as too lenient. It also proved how weak woman were in society. It proved it because woman are usually known to be strong, independent, and confident. Identity is important, however, Hulga did not believe so. Which

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.

Flannery O’Connor uses his description of characters to show that people are not who always who they say they are. When we start reading the story we are introduced to Mrs. Hopewell, who is the mother to Joy/Hulga, who is stuck up and thinks that she is superior to everyone else and is an independent woman. She is a patronizing woman that does not care about anybody except for herself. She is a rude lady that is two faced when it comes to new people that she is meeting. Then we meet Joy who is thirty-two-year-old woman with a doctor's degree in Philosophy, who changed her name to Hulga at the age of twenty-one, she lives at home with Mrs. Hopewell because she has health conditions that have to deal with her heart and she needs to be taken care of. Also, with her health conditions she has a fake leg that got shot off in a hunting accident. Hulga always thought of herself superior to everyone because she had a doctor's degree and because she went to school to get an education. She thought that she could outsmart everyone that she lives with because she reads many books and has a lot of knowledge. Next is Manley Pointer, who is a traveling Bible salesman, he is portrayed as a good country folk with good intentions. He plays an act and tricks everyone into thinking that he is a nice and kind person, but him selling Bibles and believing in God is what catches Hulga’s and Mrs. Hopewell's attention because Hulga does not believe in anything but Mrs. Hopewell does believe in God. Lastly, we have Mrs. Freeman, who has worked for Mrs. Hopewell for the past few years because her husband is the farmer. The story does

Changing her name was a very arrogant action. Her arrogance is a major part of her personality. This is evident in her interactions with Mrs. Hopewell. She obviously looks down upon her as ignorant - she stands up in the middle of a meal and says “do you ever look inside and see what you are not?” (637). The arrogance is evident to the reader, because if Hulga were to really look at herself she would see all that she is not. She obviously thinks of herself as above all the good country people, saying “she would be in a university lecturing to people who knew what she was talking about” (637).

She claims to believe in nothing therefore she is a nihilist. However, she is not a true nihilist as she wavers from believing in nothing to comparing people to God. For example, after Mrs. Hopewell commented that a smile never hurt anyone and Hulga states, “Woman! Do you ever look inside? Do you ever look inside and see what you are not? God! [...] Malebranche was right: we are not our own light” (Country People 473). According to Helga’s words she does believe in God because philosopher Malebranche did believe in God and that our “light”-everything that makes humans alive, does come from God. O’Connor has Hulga contradict her own words to show reality is Hulga is confused and deep down inside she does believe in God. Hulga is also a disable person as she has a fake leg. In the short story her leg was stolen leaving her semi-crippled. By doing so O’Connor is attempting to show Hulga’s belief system has always been faulty as she doubted herself from the start. The final stealing of Hulga’s leg makes her realize that without believing in God she is crippled and doesn’t have a strong foundation of belief in

Literary devices are used periodically in the three stories to help the story create an image. Symbolism is used in Good Country People because Hulga’s artificial leg. Her leg stands as a representation of her broken identity from when she got shot. It represents that she does not feel pretty or have any self esteem for herself. Arturo’s flight uses imagery as a literary device. The author visually describes Arturo’s punk look. Arturo states himself as having a spiked purple hair and leather stage and creating a vivid picture to the reader. An allegory in Chrysanthemums are the flowers themselves. They represent Elisa’s strength within herself and the way she gardens them. The chrysanthemums also represents her feelings as the flowers are

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.

Hulga, Mrs. Hopewell daughter who is an atheist and has a Ph.D. in philosophy, has a wooden leg and a heart condition. Her heart is weak in physically and emotionally because she does not have the ability to love. When she meets Manley “[it] is clear in her plans for Pointer that she sees him as someone who is calculable, someone she can quantify and classify in order to use for her own ends” (Hubbard par.25). Hulga believes that her intelligence is superior to everyone and she can use it to get what she wants. Little does she know that Manley also does not believe in God and that makes him “outside her means of calculation and system of ordering as “standing reserve”-leads to her devastating humiliation and loss” (par.26). Manley is just like her, but worst. While she tries to take advantage of him, he plans to take advantage of her. While on their picnic “Manley Pointer, a boy with eyes as sharp as "two steel spikes", realizes how superficial her intelligence is, how easily it can be taken away from her, and how meaningless it is in the real world” (Oliver par.4). Just as the serpent was successful in making Eve believe that was okay to eat an apple of the Tree of Knowledge, Manley make Hulga believe that it is okay to go out with him and that she will be safe.

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.

Feminism and Historicism play a major part in Flannery O’Connor’s short story, “Good Country People”, first published in 1955. The story focuses on the importance of identity and the parallels between truth and deception. In “Good Country People”, the Hopewell family, maintain a small farm in rural Georgia with the help of tenants the Freemans. The pious Mrs. Hopewell’s mottos ‘nothing is perfect’ and ‘it takes all kinds to make the world’ are manifested in her unmarried thirty-two year old daughter, Joy who later changes her name to Hulga, wears a prosthetic wooden leg because of a childhood accident. Hulga who has a Ph.D. in Philosophy, cannot advance her academic aspirations because of a weak heart; because of this she must live in her

The quote acts as foreshadowing for what her attitude towards life will be. We later find out that she is right, but that she does not live by her credo. Manley Pointer exploits this weakness as soon as she opened her door. Showing up as a pathetic bible salesman with an ailing heart (which is coincidentally exactly what Joy-Hulga had) laying the old guilt trip on Mrs. Hopewell on how no one wants to deal with a simple country boy like himself, he attacks her weakness right at the heart of it. Not more than two minutes after he knocked on the door, he ends up eating dinner with them and at the conclusion is even invited to return any time he’d like. His persona blinds Mrs. Hopewell and prevents her from being somewhat suspicious of Manley. At the end of the story, we see that Mrs. Hopewell is still clouded by her weakness and refers to Manly as simple as he passes through a field by Mrs. Hopewell and Mrs. Freeman. Unlike Mrs. Hopewell, Joy-Hulga faces and comes to a realization of her weakness.

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.

The initial step in her metamorphosis occurs when, at the age of 21, she legally changes her name from Joy to Hulga. She openly admits that she chose the name, because it was the ugliest sounding name she could think of. She is quite sensitive about her wooden leg and her adopted name. To her, they are very personal matters and are important to her as psychological symbols. She seriously attributes special powers to her new name and the ugliness it represents. « Philosophically, to name a thing is to encompass it, to know it, to control it. To bestow a name indicates power, and to rename shows—biblically the special call of God. Abram became Abraham ; Jacob became Israel ; Simon became Peter. God summoned his prophets. Hulga summoned herself to a new life. Her renaming is a comic perversion of God’s practice, a self-call to a life of sterile intellectualism » (Feeley 25). Obviously, this new name cultivates her ugliness. « She had a vision of the name working like the ugly sweating Vulcan who stayed in the furnace and to whom presumably, the goddess had to come when called »

What really makes a story come alive, what is the heart of the story? Within these stories the themes are a huge part that grab the reader and has them get more interested with the story that is being told. Also the stories have many signs of symbolism that the authors decided to put in that could be interoperated in several different ways. The authors of these two stories obviously put a lot of thought and work into them to make them what they have become today. The theme and symbolism that take place in “Good Country People” and “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings” are the most important part of the story.

A Critical Character Analysis of Flannery O 'Connor 's “Good Country People”, “A Good Man is Hard to find”, "Everything That Rises Must Converge".