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Symbolism In Good Country People

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Even Good Country People Wear Mask
The people we see every day are not always who they appear to be. Our family, friends, peers, work associates, and even our own self’s change who we are sometimes to cope or to seem better off than we are. We put on “Mask” to show the person we want to be seen as and often times people wear more than just one. In Flannery O’ Connor’s, “Good Country People” many of her main characters wore mask. They each had their own reasons that they chose to conceal their real identity. Nevertheless, the characters in O’Connor’s short story wanted to hide their true persona’s or deceive other people. Sometimes it was merely done to cope with their tragic pain and in other cases it was done to deliberately take advantage …show more content…

Hulga ask Manley on their outing the next why he brought his case with the Bibles to which he replies, “You can never tell when you’ll need the word of God, Hulga” (O’Connor, 454). They go in an abandoned old barn where he tricks her to climbing a ladder to a loft. He even drags his heavy case up to the loft. He keeps up his Choir boy act so that she will not expect what he is truly up to. They make it up to the loft and began kissing and somewhere along the way it seems Hulga is falling for the boy, as she admits her age and her intelligence to him. She is starting to strip away her mask with her honesty leaving her more vulnerable. He starts to take interest in her wooden leg and asking her about it in a gentle sort of way seeming that he wants to know every part of her. “She decided that for the first time in her life she was face to face with real innocence” (O’Connor, 456). She allows him to take her wooden leg off leaving her totally vulnerable in a loft off the ground. “Without the leg she felt entirely dependent on him” (O’Connor, 457). Manley opens his Bible case, “It was hollow and contained a pocket flask of whiskey, a pack of cards, and a small blue box with printing on it” (O’Connor, 457). Hulga is shocked by what she sees and Manley’s mask is revealed. He is an imposter, a swindler, a sinner, an unbeliever, and he …show more content…

We try to hide our flaws, so we wear a mask to conceal our imperfections. We are hurt and unable to fully recover, so we put on a mask. We are a monster, so we wear a mask to hide our vile and devilish ways. We want to appear to okay, even though inside we are dying a little bit each day, so we put on a mask. Wearing a mask is a lot like being a wife and a mother. A wife and mother is many other things, such as a cook, a nurse, a taxi driver, a cheerleader, a lover, a daughter, a worker, and maybe even a student amongst other things. We juggle our self between all these different persona’s. In O’Connor’s, “Good Country People” many of her characters wore mask to conceal the things they didn’t want seen. Hulga pretended to be a rude, uncaring brat to hide her hurt she felt from losing her leg at an early age. Manley Pointer disguised himself as a Bible salesman to take advantage of people, when he was nothing more than a wolf in sheep’s clothing. While the matriarch of the family, Mrs. Hopewell insisted that everything was fine. Everyone has their own way of getting through tough situations and circumstances and these country people proved they were no different from the rest. “In one of her essays, “The Regional Writer” Flannery O’Connor spoke of, “the particular crossroads where time and place and eternity somehow meet.” (Driskell and Brittain, The Eternal Crossroads). These such characters in this

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