Summary Of Good Country People And Revelation By Flannery O Connor

Flannery O’Connor uses the literary device of the epiphany in many of her short stories. The epiphany, typically used at the conclusion of the short story, highlights the redemptive possibilities for characters that have become engulfed by the increasing secular world. That being said, the chance for redemption is not a smooth and carefree process. Several of O’Connor’s short stories contain a protagonist that experiences an epiphany that transforms them, only then to suffer from some act of violence that solidifies their move towards Christianity. In Good Country People and Revelation, the development of the protagonists and their eventual epiphanies reveal the fullest implications of the stories’ themes. The epiphany of Hulga Hopewell in

This breakdown in secular knowledge is revealed through Hulga’s loss of her glasses and her artificial leg, the two symbols of her intellectual acumen. Although Hulga claims to “see through to nothing’” and has “taken off our blindfolds,” she only possesses a nonspiritual vision (O’Connor 287-288). When Pointer takes her glasses she does not notice, but when her artificial leg is seized she “felt entirely dependent on him” and “stopped thinking all together” (O’Connor 289). The glasses and the artificial leg are both things that Hulga takes pride in, but they also prove to be symbols of her vulnerability. Thus, now that Hulga no longer has the glasses to only see the secular world and the artificial leg to stand on her own, she is ready to experience her epiphany. O’Connor writes, “He jumped up so quickly that she barely saw him sweep the cards and the blue box into the Bible and throw the Bible into the valise. She saw him grab the leg and then she saw it for an instant slanted forlornly across the inside of the suitcase” (O’Connor 290). Without her glasses and artificial leg, Hulga can finally see. O’Connor displays the problems with a secular worldview in the epiphany of