ipl-logo

Flannery O Connor's Good Country People

1429 Words6 Pages

In “Good Country People,” by Flannery O’Connor, the protagonist’s internal struggle with her identity stems from both an undiagnosed mental disorder and a lack of parental guidance since her traumatic accident. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) causes 32-year-old Joy Hopewell to be a perpetual teenager, which affects her relationships as an adult. In addition, Joy’s mother's parenting style was based off of pity from the accident resulting in an absence of guidance during Joy’s formative years. As a teenager, Joy gets accustomed to receiving unsolicited pity from everyone, which burdens her later in life. Thus, by being pitied, Joy expresses discontent with her life by acting out in a rebellious state. Joy becomes resentful of everyone and has no sympathy for people because they do not accept her. The lasting …show more content…

Hulga carries this teen angst to adulthood which is associated with her identity. O’Connor documents Hulga’s life which correlates with the attitude of privileged southerners during the 1950’s. During this time southerners benefitted from the economic boom following World War II, but remained racist as civil rights issues began to surface. Consequently, the southern way of life during this time period is also a factor in forming Hulga’s identity. From Hulga’s point of view, having servants was normal as was treating them poorly. Due to her mother caring about the farm, she disposed of servants with bad work ethics. Unknowingly, Mrs. Hopewell passes this decorum to her daughter and the narrator says, “She had had plenty of experience with trash. Before the Freemans she had averaged one tenant family a year. The wives of these farmers were not the kind you would want to be around you for very long.” Children learn manners, gratitude, and integrity from their parents which are all things Hulga was not exposed to. As a child Hulga believed it was

Show More
Related
1746 Words | 7 Pages

Instead of celebrating the joy of life that she has created, she claims that “the children used her up” (Larsen 625). Helga progresses on her journey as a character whom sadness comes much more naturally to than the happiness of even monumental life events. Helga slips further into tragedy, losing her sense of passion, desire and will to survive. Reverend Green begins to notice how “his children [are] unwashed, and his wife [is] untidy” (Larsen 625), which results in his ever-fading presence. As Helga’s husband become more and more infrequently home she realizes that life as a house wife and mother is not the fulfillment she hoped it to be.

Read More
756 Words | 4 Pages

Joy’s mother, Mrs. Hopewell, states that it is hard to think of her daughter as an adult, and that Joy’s prosthetic leg has kept her from experiencing “any normal good times” that people her age have experienced (O’Connor 3). Despite the fact that Joy has no experience with people outside of her home, Joy has contempt and spite around her mother and acquaintances alike. In fact, when Joy changed her name to Hulga, she considered it “her highest creative act” and found a self-serving pleasure when the name brought dissatisfaction to her mother (O’Connor 3). When Joy expresses her disgust with her hometown, she also shares that she would much rather be “lecturing to people who knew what she was talking about” (O’Connor 4). Therefore, Joy suggests that the people and ideas that have surrounded her are inferior to her intelligence, and this

Read More
3580 Words | 15 Pages

At the beginning of the novel Helga expresses that she is not really a religious person, but she does turn to religion after her decision to have a sexual affair with Doctor Anderson backfires and she decides she needs to get married. The rejection is followed by the climax of the novel when Helga is wandering around in the rain seeking literal shelter. This is when she comes across Reverend Green and his religious group/meeting. The people attending the meeting are awful to her and say horrible things, but they are trying to “save her soul” or at least that is how she chooses to see it. Rain is a symbol for washing away mistakes and washing away the old for the new—and in this scene a new version of Helga definitely comes out, but it is not positive like she intended, and it leads to her tragic fate at the end of the novel.

Read More
522 Words | 3 Pages

Since the hunting accident, Joy-Hulga has proclaimed herself as a atheist; she refuses to allow her mother who is a Christian have her Bible in the general living area. Oliver explains how Joy-Hulga has "replaced these missing items with an artificial leg and an artificial belief" due to the "nothing" that Joy-Hulga worships throughout the story (234). The "nothing" she worships comes from the "philosophy of nothing" according to Oliver (236). Joy-Hulga sees philosophy as her religion and her safe haven. With philosophy she believes she can outsmart Manley Pointer and seduce him.

Read More
890 Words | 4 Pages

It is not until the very end of the story that readers are shown the true character of Manley Pointer. It is possible that the motive for stealing Hulga’s leg is that Mrs. Freeman hired the Bible salesman to steal the artificial leg from her. “Something about her seemed to fascinate Mrs. Freeman and then one day Hulga realized that it was the artificial leg” (O’connor 436). It is interesting that

Read More
2245 Words | 9 Pages

As described by Mrs. Hopewell, her mother, Joy-Hulga rarely tries to connect with others, or rather, to branch out from herself; Joy-Hulga seemed to grow “less like other people and more like herself--bloated, rude, and squint-eyed” (276). Distinctly, Joy-Hulga’s hierarchy is one that has no room for anyone else at the top, and it places herself at the highest tier, making her untouchable and infallible in her mind. Because of her hierarchy that lends to an isolationary sense of superiority, Joy-Hulga is actually rather unfamiliar with social interaction, and because she assumes her superior position, she is further blinded to any guile

Read More
841 Words | 4 Pages

Both characters have different desires for the relationship and results in an unexpected sudden end. Hulga is Hulga, also known as Joy, is around thirty years old and still living with her mother. She is often disagreeing or complaining with her mother

Read More
688 Words | 3 Pages

In the story "A Good Man Is Hard to Find" by Flannery O'Connor, there is no doubt the reader should consider the grandmother a villain. Throughout the story, it is easy to assume the grandmother would eventually lead the family to some sort of downfall. The grandmother has many traits that make her a villain, and through her judgemental nature, selfish acts, and inability to stop talking, she leads her family and herself to their death. Throughout the story it is obvious that the grandmother is very judgemental of people and seems to consider herself as better than everyone.

Read More
543 Words | 3 Pages

Flannery O’Connor, in her short life, wrote one novel and many short stories that impact literature to this day. She wrote two superb short stories, A Good Man is Hard to Find and Good Country People, which have many similarities hidden in the theme of their complex text. While both stories include themes about religion, identity, and the way we view others, the endings are astoundingly different. Nonetheless, O’Connor’s main theme concerning the way we view other people, is the most significant in both short stories. In Good Country People, Mrs. Hopewell repeatedly states that the bible salesman is the “salt of the earth” meaning that he is just a good and simple country boy.

Read More
885 Words | 4 Pages

She grabbed him whimpering; held him under till the struggle ceased and the bubbles rose silver from his fur. (Hood 414) In Mary Hoods “How Far She Went” A grandmother struggles with the burden of experience, loss and a life of hard decisions; where a girl strives to live in a naïve and free spirited illusion. The paths of a grandmother and her granddaughter soon collide when experience and naivety meet on a dirt road in the south. “How Far She Went” illustrates how generational struggles and tragedies can mold people influencing their lives and the way they live.

Read More
965 Words | 4 Pages

When reading a few of Flannery O’Connor’s stories, one cannot help but make a connection with her intensive stories and those of a television show. Both take mostly everyday people and exaggerate them into an absurd nature. Her stories and television shows use shock factors to draw in readers and viewers, respectively. While television shows tend to vary in themes and messages, Flannery O’Connor’s short stories tend to be focused on a few limited messages and themes. Television shows are mostly mindless channels of entertainment, Flannery O’Connor uses her characters not only to entertain, but to also cause readers to reflect inward and think.

Read More
623 Words | 3 Pages

Good Country People by Flannery O’Connor has many instances pertaining to the theme of Identity and morals. Mrs. Hopewell and Joy believe they are better than everyone else. However, Joy changed her name to Hulga in order to shape her identity because of her leg. She feels like Joy is a beautiful name but see herself as ugly Hulga. Since Hulga has a wooden leg, “Mrs. Hopewell thought of her as a child though she was thirty-two years old and highly educated” (O’Connor 1) Even though Hulga has gone out and become independent in a sense, Mrs. Hopewell thinks Hulga will never lead a normal life and therefore considers her a child.

Read More
1121 Words | 5 Pages

What is interesting at this point is that the reader realises that O’Connor is using the symbolism of Hulga’s artificial leg to highlight her spiritual weakness. Also, when Pointer opens his valise and the reader finds that he has a hollow bible with a flask of whisky, some contraceptives, and obscene playing cards inside it the reader becomes aware that it mirrors Pointer’s religious hypocrisy (and depravity) . A point further highlights when he abandons Hulga in the loft and tells her, “I been believing in nothing ever since I was born”(O’Connor 16). Again, O’Connor highlighting the idea of nihilism. In the end, the story basically explains how people are not always “Good Country

Read More
1121 Words | 5 Pages

Parents are always supposed to look out for the best interests of their child. Anne Tyler authored the short story “Teenage Wasteland” which depicts the story of a strained mother and son relationship between the character Donny, and his mother Daisy. Donny is a teenage boy who is struggling with his grades at school and is exhibiting poor behavior. His mother, Daisy is concerned with her son’s grades and behavior, however, she fails at getting her son the help that he requires. Told through the point of view of the character Daisy, Tyler uses irony to tell the story of a teenage boy who is failed by the adults in his life who are supposed to help him flourish, including his parents, a psychologist, and his tutor.

Read More
868 Words | 4 Pages

“One of her major triumphs was that her mother had not been able to turn her dust into Joy…” (O 'Connor 484), this could mean that with name decision Hulga had made her mother could not turn it into something positive, because once something is dust you can not turn it back into its original form. Hulga’s name change symbolized that she was not the same girl she once was or she would be. In addition, the author inserts Vulcans name to compare him to Hulga’s

Read More

More about Flannery O Connor's Good Country People

Related Topics

Open Document