Good Country People - Research Paper Example

Good Country People is a short story written by Flannery O’Connor, extracted from her collection of short stories ‘A Good Man is Hard to Find’. Her stories are based on religious themes. She was a committed Roman Catholic.

The main characters of the story are a mother, Mrs. Hopewell, and her daughter, Joy, and a Bible salesman who appears to be a man of good intentions but turns out to be something entirely different, Manley Pointer. The story is based on a farm in Georgia. O'Conner uses irony, foreshadowing, and symbolism by focusing on these characters and how humans can be blinded by their pride and people lack real knowledge and people are not what they look like. And that people through their own pride can become a target of evil.

The names of the characters in this short are a prime example of irony. Mrs. Hopewell and Joy Hopewell hope well and believe that the world is just like it appears to be. They are of the belief that they can have whatever they want and there will be no complications offered by the world. Manley Pointer’s name indicates that he has the qualities of an ideal man like honesty, strength, and bravery which ironically he does not possess. He lies to Mrs. Hopewell in order to be allowed into her house and pretends to understand Joy so that he could gain her trust. Joy later changes her name to Hulga which sounds like Vulcan who was the Greek God of fire (Dan Yin).

Mrs. Hopewell prided herself on being an intelligent woman, who could see the negativity of others and use it to protect herself and her daughter. She knew quite well how to respond to the reactions of people when Joy lost her leg in an accident at the age of 10. ("Good Country People" Theme Paper.). Mr. and Mrs. Freeman were hired as tenants who Mrs. Hopewell considered good country people. “She realized that nothing is perfect and that in the Freemans she had good country people and that if, in this day and age, you get good country people, you had better hang onto them” (461). This statement shows how blind Mrs. Hopewell was towards believing that if people appeared to be good, they were incapable of doing anything bad.

Hulga does not like the name Joy because she could not find Joy in her life. She loses her leg in an accident at the age of ten. She studies hard and gets a Ph.D. in philosophy so she could teach people who she could connect with and who would understand her, unlike her mother. Mrs. Hopewell has false philosophies regarding life which distance her from her daughter even more, who has a Ph.D. in Philosophy (O'Connor's Short Stories: Summary and Analysis: "Good Country People"). Mrs. Hopewell wishes that Joy would become the joyful daughter she had hoped for but instead, Joy is always sulking and a loner who is self-absorbed and is referred to as “the large hulking Joy” (461). By changing her name to Hulga, she matches it to her physical appearance as described by O'Conner who is a big blonde girl.

In spite of having a Ph.D., Hulga was blind to human nature and was unable to judge people, and could not see through their pretenses. “She was brilliant but she didn’t have a grain of sense” (463). This line indicates that in spite of having great knowledge about the world, she knew little about the people. She was proud of her Ph.D. and held herself in the highest opinion. She looked down upon everyone and especially men “as if she could smell their stupidity” (463). This suggests that Hulga is secretly waiting for a man who would get her and meet her on her level of intelligence, someone who would love her unconditionally and see that she was really special. That’s why she seemed to be smitten by Manley Pointer who made her feel special. Mrs. Hopewell assumed that he was a good country person because he presented himself as a Bible salesman who didn’t want to get educated, but “devote my life to Christian service” (465). He tries to win their hearts by saying that he did not have long to live as “I got this heart condition.  ” (465). This makes Hulga even more attracted to him as she had a defective heart as well and she did not think that anyone could outwit her. This turned out to be the height of irony as he turns out not to be a Bible salesman but an atheist who runs away with her artificial leg, which was a symbol of her security as without it, she was unable to do anything and was heavily dependent on it. The story concludes that in spite of all her education Hulga was unable to see evil and that she did not have a “grain of sense” (463).