Hulga in “Good Country People” Essay

Joy has changed her name to Hulga, which is a symbol of the control she has for her own life and the ugly lack of meaning she sees in the world around her. Hulga is an

For instance, Joy legally changes her name to Hulga. She changes her name from Joy because she does not see herself as beautiful as such a name implies. In fact, the narrator says, "she had thought and thought until she had hit upon the ugliest name in any language" (132). Furthermore, Hulga never wears dresses or anything nice. Instead, she chooses to wear a "six year old skirt and a yellow sweat shirt with a faded cowboy on a horse embossed on it" (133). Hulga does not believe that any amount of makeup or nice clothes can improve upon her ugliness. This low confidence directly derives from her mother's dissatisfaction with her.

As a part of the style used in this article, the author has a very effective way of showing irony. Irony is when something happens that is the opposite of what one would expect and is usually used to make something funny. A first example of irony presented in the article is when Dumas went by her real name, Firoozeh, she wasn’t able to get any jobs or make friends. Ironically, as soon as she started to use “Julie” as her name she made many friends and was able to get numerous job offers and interviews. Another example of irony in the article is that she wanted people to know her true self and be her friend, but she was lying about her name the whole time.

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

Then she had gone and had the beautiful named, Joy, changed without telling her mother until after she had done it. Her legal name was Hulga.”

Many children are named according to ancient biblical figures or even symbols that represent character. Joy did not believe her named represented her as an individual. When one thinks of the name Joy, one would think of a perky little girl that was pleasant to be around. As stated, joy means a great feeling of pleasure or happiness. Joy was not happy nor did she find any pleasure in her life.  Joy did not believe she fitted that stereotype or the definition, nor did she really want to. When one thinks of the name Hulga, one would think of someone that was big, strong, and abrupt.  So consequently she legally changed her name to Hulga when she was twenty-one. She believed she was ugly inside and out and that the name Hulga would represent her well. Joy was a large blonde girl who had an artificial leg. (O'Connor 248). She went about all day in a six-year old skirt and a yellow sweatshirt with a faded cowboy on a horse embossed on it. (O'Connor 250-251). She was thirty-two and still never knew the simple affection from the opposite sex. She did not really like young men any ways. She looked at young men as if she could smell their stupidity. (O'Connor 251). Later on in the story a con-artist bible salesman by the name

O’Connor first expresses her views in her short story, “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” by using the literary element of point of view. Point of view is an important literary element in O’Connor’s short story, because it expresses her views on the grandmother and her “role as grace-bringer” (Bethea 2006). Point of view is expressed in her story by the main character the grandmother, a woman who lives with her son and tries to convince her family to go to Tennessee to avoid the Misfit. Point of view is especially important in this story because it lets the reader know what the grandmother is thinking and her actions that involve the main conflict of the short story. For instance, in “A Good Man Is Hard to Find”, the

Hulga did not care about anyone else but herself. She lived in self-pity. There are many disabled kids, adults and veterans in the world. There are professional runners and people without limbs that work and do amazing things. Even though she had these issues she thought she was better and too good for everyone else. Mrs. Hopewell states that Hulga, “was brilliant but she didn’t have a grain of sense.”(O’Connor 558) Hulga even

Joy-Hulga, who had grown cynical and cold as she grew up with only one leg and heart ailment, creates an image that she is smarter and better than the rest of the characters in the story. Her education and self-absorption seemed to instill this attitude in her to greater extent than if she hadn’t studied and read so much. Her weakness is the feeling of power she believed she gained from her studies. She refers to herself as a person who “sees

She also doesn’t walk normally, as she makes “the awful noise because it was ugly sounding” (O’Connor 1343) that also shows a desire to sound ugly. This shows some kind of comparison to the Greek god Hephaestus (also known as Vulcan in the Roman myth). In Greek mythology, Hephaestus was considered the god of fire and blacksmiths. He was described as ugly, and due to his father (Zeus) throwing him off a cliff, he had a weakness in his legs and can only be held up by some kind of support. This description sounds similar to Joy/Hulga. In Book 8 of The Odyssey, Hephaestus is known for being crafty and builds a snare that catches Aphrodite and Ares. Joy/Hulga can be described as creative and it can be evident by her drawing and writing skills. Her most notable creation is renaming herself to Hulga as it says in the story it is her “highest creative act” (O’Connor 1343).

Hulga concerns herself with what is which relates the her disdainful rejection of the spiritual, so Hulga takes from the passage exactly what Heidegger is arguing against. (Hubbord, p53) Hulga is ethically problematic but nonetheless useful in O’ Connor’s vision of the damning and damned, universe.” She is disabled and physically carries the stigma of abnormality, metaphorically emboding the “sins” of the world with her.” (Behling p.88) “Hulga is a 32 year-old with a Ph.D. in philosophy and an artificial leg. Because of her weak heart, she lives at home with her mother, if not for her condition, Hulga “would be for from these red hills and good country people. She would be in a university lecturing to people who knew what she was talking about”. (Behling p.88) Hulga’s commitment to nihilism is not so absolute as to give pointer such and unqualified claim, though as the story demonstrates, she has flirted with a force she does not understand and which is competent to violate her soul in a most obscene manner, thus exposing its emptiness.(Edmondson III, p.158) The remainder of the story is a study in manipulation, seduction and subjugation with Pointer as the teacher. Hulga becomes vulnerable because, of her empty wounded state of psyche. “Spiritually and physically crippled” “a wooden part of her soul that correspondes to her wooden leg.” (Behling p.158) Hulga’s physical afflictions her heart condition,

O’Connor also focuses on contrasting characters in her story to bring the plot along, for example the conflict in the story is between Mrs. May and Mr. Greenleaf, two almost completely opposite characters. Mrs. May is shown as a bitter character who blames others for her problems, although most are self-inflicted. Such as how she hired Mr. Greenleaf for fifteen years although she obviously hates him, or how she ends up raising bitter and cruel sons who treat her with no respect. On the other hand the Greenleaf’s is simple, although uneducated, but manages to raise two successful sons, unlike Mrs. May’s. However, Mrs. May looks down on Mr. Greenleaf because she feels he is inferior to her in social standing and intelligence. . For example when she went to O.T. and E.T.’s farm and saw their milking parlor, she decided automatically that they were paid for the Government and the boys didn’t work for it. Mrs. May says how “I would have to do it myself. I am not assisted hand and foot by the Government.” This illustrates how Mrs. May still thinks less of the Greenleafs, even if they have a better farm then her because she thinks they did not gain it themselves, that it was instead paid for by the Government. The Greenleaf boys have a better working farm then her, and therefore are a little higher than her in

Through the stories “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love,” “How to Talk to a Hunter,” and “Good Country People” there is a similar theme; they all showcase the mystery of love and how there is no universal way to define it. Although these stories have a similar theme, they have some differences on what the source of conflict is for the characters of each story. Each story has a unique plot and character, however, different interpretations of love from characters in the stories is a commonality.

“Can anyone give me an example of dramatic irony?” I look around the lukewarm room, seeing little to no spark of life left in these children. When the school year had begun, they were so lively and willing to learn. They would continually engage, ask questions, even challenge me when the time came for it. Now there were only dazed looks, glazed over eyes, and the unique look of Carmen Kerstov looking off into the distance.

In the short story “Good Country People” the main character’s name is Joy though we learn she changed it to Hulga. Hulga is a self-proclaimed nihilist, a person who believes in nothing and that nothing matters. It is her belief of nihilism is why Hulga believes she is intellectually superior to everyone else around her including her mother Mrs. Freeman. It’s implied in the story that Hulga resents her mother to some extent which is part of the reason why she legally changed her name from Joy to Hulga. When Hulga changed her name, O’Conner said, “That it emotionally wounded the mother so deeply that she would never truly heal.” (Diyanni 178) Mrs. Hopewell seems to be well aware of Hulga resentment