The Lost Of Idealism In 'Good Country People'

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

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.

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.

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).

In the speech “The Spirit of Liberty ”Learned Hand says, ”Liberty lies in the heart of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law no court can save it; no constitution, no law, no court can even do much help.” I agree with Hand because if the people think they have no liberty and can never get it they won't fight for liberty. For me to be an American means to have freedom as a whole, equality, and justice.The most important Ideals related to being an American are equality, freedom and justice

Joy changes her name to Hulga in “Good Country People” by Flannery O’Conner in order to change her perception of herself, her conflict being her identity. During Joy’s contemplation, she encounter the name Hulga because “she had a vision of the name working like the ugly sweating Vulcan who stayed in the furnace and to whom...the goddess had to come when called” (664). Joy sympathizes for Vulcan because the god also has a physical deformity; and just like Vulcan who’s the god of fire and forge, she’s forging an identity for herself that can be stated “her highest creative act” (665). It can be interpreted that Joy has forgiven herself for her disability and sees her leg as her backbone when “her mother had not been able to turn her dust into Joy” but rather “she had been able to turn it herself into Hulga;” she accepts her own beauty and realizes she’s beautiful (665). If Vulcan can be married to Venus, then she can be accepted into her own crowd, as she once said, “If you want me, here I am—LIKE I AM” (664).

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.”

Unlike Hooper in “A Minister’s Veil,” in “Good Country People,” Hulga is a crippled character who believes in no God. She not only has a wooden leg, she also has poor eyesight and a heart condition. However, Kate Oliver stated these “physical afflictions symbolize her emotional, intellectual, and spiritual impairments.” What Oliver means is that Joy/Hulga’s physical defects represent her misshapened spirit and her broken outlook towards religion. Oliver also stated that “Joy-Hulga revels in her rejection of God. She is a self-proclaimed atheist.” Furthermore, Hulga loved philosophy and this is what she believed in rather than God. She believed in the philosophies that taught that nothing exist outside the self and this belief is another manifestation of her spiritual defects. She chose to believe in this nothing

The definition of an idealist is a person who is guided more by ideals than practical considerations. The definition of a realist also coincides with the way the idealistic person who is defined in A Raisin in the Sun (Hansberry, 1959). The character Agassi explains the idealist is a person constantly moving forward in life despite all negative and unforeseen setbacks and unexpected outcomes (Hansberry, 134). Idealist realizes sometimes no matter how calculated, detailed and well thought out a plan is, things happen. Life is hard, but you have to set a goal and fight through whatever life through at you to be successful. Langston Hughes poem “Mother to Son" is a perfect depiction of how an idealist views and endures life.

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.

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

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 »

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