Category: Good Country People

Introduction

Flannery O’Connor is one of America’s favorite writers thanks to her deep insightfulness and strength in writing unconventional with a touch of the gothic strange in them, such as she’s done in her short story “Good Country People.”

The brief plot of the story

In this story, a small household gets a visit from a young door-to-door Bible salesman. One of these women is Hulga Hopewell, who is 32 years old, feels herself ugly beyond belief, has earned a Ph.D. in philosophy and must wear a false leg because her natural leg had been shot off in an accident when she was a child. While her mother invites the salesman in and considers him ‘good country people’ like she is, Hulga does not believe in anything and thinks to seduce this young man when he shows the slightest interest in her. She is a flawed character who identifies herself only through her physical deformities, her glasses and her artificial leg, but remains ignorant of self until she is forced to confront the truth.

Although Hulga is well into her thirties, O’Connor presents her as having very little in the way of worldly experience. Because she has a Ph.D., Hulga believes she is much more experienced and worldly than those with whom her mother associates, but she continues living with her mother and isolates herself from the rest of society. She is grotesque because of her missing leg and her emphasis upon it through her heavy step and ‘clumping’ movements. “Deformed characters are relatively few, and their general meaning fairly consistent: their conditions reflect spiritual incompleteness or lameness … each is in some way a moral derelict” (Martin, 2001, p.88).

Hulga’s flaw is in her spirit as represented by the physical deformity. She is led into her ruination at the hands of Manley Pointer, thinking she is instead leading him into temptation. “During the night, she imagined that she seduced him. She imagined that the two of them walked on the place until they came to the storage barn beyond the two back fields and there … she had to reckon with his remorse” (O’Connor, 1990, p. 284). She feels powerful because of the fascination the salesman seems to feel for her.

Hulga’s sense of identity is tied to her handicap and this handicaps her even further as it provides the opportunity for strangers to take advantage of her. When Hulga relinquishes her leg to the Bible salesman, she “felt entirely dependent on him.

Her brain seemed to have stopped thinking altogether and to be about some other function that it was not very good at” (O’Connor, 1990, p. 289). In taking her leg, the Bible salesman has taken her very identity, the one thing with which she associates herself with completely. “She has been robbed of her entire self: her intellectuality, her body, and her soul” (Martin, 1969, p. 77). Despite her insistence on loathing the false leg and the thick glasses she depends on to see, in the end, Hulga finds she is literally left without a leg to stand on and is totally incapable of saving herself from her present situation.

Conclusion

Although it seems she will never experience the sort of power or trust she presumed to have with the Bible salesman again, Hulga is provided with a small measure of hope at the end. Her innocence is stolen from her as she is left in the barn minus her glasses and her wooden leg, yet she is given an opportunity to achieve grace through the understanding of her own limitations. If she learns she has value apart from her false leg and false ‘eyes’, she may find some means of also finding the kind of happiness she has believed can’t be obtained.

Works Cited

Martin, Carter W. “O’Connor’s Use of the Grotesque.” Readings on Flannery O’Connor. San Diego, CA: Greenhaven Press, 2001.

O’Connor, Flannery. “Good Country People.” The Complete Stories. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1990, pp. 271-91.

Every story usually has elements of form that help bring out the message that the author has in mind. These elements help shape out the story and if well presented, they effectively contribute to ease of understanding, on the part of the reader. This essay seeks to explain one element of form and its presentation in a story. To this end, focus shall be placed on a story by Flannery O’Connor.

In the story Good Country people, the author, O’Connor, is primarily trying to contrast good and evil. To achieve this aim, O’Connor, weaves the narration around the beliefs and perceptions of the character Joy, who later on changes her name to Hulga.

In this regard, one element of form that principally stands out is prose, which is fundamentally the unspecific but flowing manner in which the story is told. And he develops the theme gradually, as illustrated below. As the story begins Joy, who is crippled, regards herself as the most intelligent individual amongst everybody in her surroundings.

She also takes pride in her wooden leg, which she believes symbolizes her uniqueness. Deeper into the narration, she changes her name to Hulga, she finds herself in an incident where she loses her cherished wooden leg to Manley Pointer, a Bible salesman, who tricks her with seductive moves and eventually makes away with the prized-possession.

It is at this point that she (Hulga) picks knowledge of the evil existing in the world.

Given the number of characters interacting with Joy/Hulga, it calls for the writer to give similar attention to each and every one of them, detailing how, and why they influence the main character’s perception of good and evil. For instance, in telling why she respected Glynese, Mrs.

Hopewell, in her discussion with Mrs. Freeman says that it all boils down to common sense. In narrating this discussion, O’Connor sticks to the Universalist point of view to the first point of view, and from time to time sums up her (author’s) general view of the points made by the two individuals. This strategy is held throughout the entire story.

O’Connor also uses various other elements of narration including flashbacks, in order to make the reader understand why the characters find themselves at certain positions in life. Flashbacks is basically a form of narration where the author/character reaches back to a past incident and brings it forth to link it with the present.

For example, when Hulga is introduced to Manley, she urges him to talk about himself, and the author picks from his past to describe his current situation. For instance, we get to learn that his mother ensured that he never skipped a day of Sunday School, something that makes the reader understand that his entry into Bible selling did not come by chance.

This essay had set out to explain an element of form and its presentation in a story. The story Good Country People by Flannery O’Connor was used to exemplify the usage of the element of prose/narration.

The discussion came to a conclusion that proper usage of narrative strategies, helped the author bring out the theme she had in mind, in a manner that is easily picked by any reader. By lifting particular examples from the story, and giving their linkage to the chosen element of form, the theme of good vs evil has been well explained.

“Good Country People” by Flannery O’Connor is a story that is full of irony and this irony is achieved by means of the main character, Mrs. Freeman. Moreover, the very title of the story gives the effect of irony. After reading the story, it becomes understandable what the title means in reality and how fully it supports the ironic contest of the story.

The irony of the story is introduced by Hulga Hopewell’s attitude to life, being more specific to her faith and pride. As it is seen from the reading, Hulga Hopewell believes only in her wood leg, which she had lost many years ago. Having been named Joy in her birth, she thinks that she does not deserve such a name and begin to call herself Hulga. The culmination of irony is the episode when Hulga’s leg is broken by Manley Pointer, a person from the country around Willohobie. When the leg is broken, Hunga understands that the life was spent in vain, because the only thing she believed in and considered to be the strongest is broken. The title of the story is the irony as not all people from the countryside as so good, as it may seem from the first side.

It may be concluded that Hulga’s life was really spent in vain, but not because of her leg broken, but because all her life she believed in nothing and she did not have any aim. The leg cannot be the sense of people’s life as it is just a leg, and people should believe in something more real. Hulga did not have any goal, she did not try to reach something, it may be concluded that she did not live as it is impossible to live without aim and without any interest in life. Hulga just swans in the common flow and without desires and interests in her life, so this may be named the real reason for the vanity of her life. As for me, it is impossible to imagine life without aim or desire as people always want to reach something, they always have the sphere of interests.

Works Cited

O’Connor, Flannery. A Good Man Is Hard to Find: And Other Stories. New York: Demco Media, 2002