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Good Country People Hulga Character Analysis

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Short stories often have a character or several characters that establish connections through the events and experiences in the story.In Flannery O'Connor's short story “Good Country People”, Hulga and Manley Pointer have create an interesting relationship quickly in the story. Hulga and Pointer have different perspectives towards their relationship. Hulga sees their relationship is of Manley's innocent love for Hulga. While Pointer establishes a relationship of illusion to take advantage of Hulga. 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 …show more content…

Hulga is assuming that Manley is lesser than him and has no chance of being with her. Shortly after the dinner the bible salesman is leaving and Hulga describes their encounter as she is walking him towards the gate. Manley describes to Hulga how he also has a serious condition that will result in him dying, and he suggests that the two of them were destined to meet and that they should see each other the next day again. Hulga agrees to the idea and imagines scenarios in her head about what will happen. Hulga believes that Manley is easily manipulated and can be seduced easily. “During the night she had imagined that she seduced him” (180) Hulga concludes that Manley will be easily persuaded by herself and that she is truly superior than he is intellectually. “True genius can get an idea across even to an inferior mind.” (180) Hulga’s relationship with Manley continues to grow as they learn more about each other. While walking towards their picnic Hulga expresses to Manley that she does not believe in God which shocked Manley. After

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They kiss somewhat more and Manley at last takes Hulga 's leg. She gets furious, however Manley declines to return it. He opens up his Bible to uncover it 's holding bourbon and cards; things being what they are he is a trick craftsman and Manley Pointer isn 't his genuine name. Hulga gets angrier with him, yet Manley packs up his stuff and discloses to her that, in spite of her instruction, he, a basic book of scriptures businessperson, figured out how to trick her. He at that point keeps running off with her leg, abandoning her powerless in the

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Joy/Hulga affects a cynical façade, claiming not to believe in anything. (As she tells Manley, "I don 't have illusions. I 'm one of those people who sees through to nothing.") Yet by the end of the story, Joy/Hulga 's carefully constructed façade is shattered; through the dramatic irony in her absence of self-awareness to the situational irony pervading the final scene, O 'Connor ultimately reveals Joy/Hulga as an innocent who is shocked when she witnesses the beliefs she once espoused as embodied in Manley

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Throughout Ruth’s interpretation of her past, brief -yet significant- insight on Hudis Shilsky’s character is depicted, unveiling the comprehensive mother behind the deferent, ignorant wife. Her initial meekness is first directly introduced by Ruth during the commencement of the biography when the latter undisputedly remarks, ‘My mother....was the exact opposite of him (referring to Fishel Shilsky) gentle and meek….she was a quiet woman’ (Mcbride 3), granting an immediate awareness of her mother’s character. She is then subsequently characterized in an indirect manner as Ruth reiterates the relationship that Hudis and her father held, stating that, ‘She kept the religious traditions of a Jewish housewife and was loyal to her husband, but Tateh had absolutely no love for her. He would call her by any name and make fun of her disability. He’d say “I get sick to look at you,” and, “Why do you bother trying to look pretty” (Mcbride 41)?

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At first Hulga does not notice Manley taking off her glasses; however she still carries on trying to seduce Manley. This signals her acceptance to her new vision, and it also demonstrates

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In Flannery O’Connor’s short story “Good Country People” the protangonist, Joy, had mutual characteristics with each of the characters. Her and Mrs. Hopewell were both naïve to Manely Pointer’s true personality. Joy and Mrs. Freeman were both very serious people. Last her and Manely Pointer are both illusive, but for different reasons. Joy, or Hulga’s, point of view is third person limited, the reader can see what Joy is thinking and feeling, but only at certain points in the story.

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Hulga wants to leave home and really does not want to come back. She does not have a good relationship with her mother because Hulga is “too smart” for her family which breaks the bond between them. Since Hulga dislikes her mom she changed her name to make her mother even more mad at her. 2. There is something suspicious about Manley Pointer throughout the story.

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She would not use it. She continued to call her Joy to which the girl responded but in a purely mechanical way.” (O’Connor 222) The chasm between Hulga and her mother made Hulga to withdraw from establishing a good meaningful family relationship with her mother, and end up attached to a guy, Manley Pointer, really quickly later. Manley Pointer, the guy with important role as his name implies that he is going to “point” out something to change Hulga’s

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She uses the term good country people and “nice young men” (page 3) as insults to keep those types of people at arm’s length due to her insecurity; Manly Pointer could be described by both of those terms. When Hulga’s mother calls Manly the salt of the earth as a reference to him being a good country person she makes a rude remark about getting “rid of the salt of the earth” (page 4) so she could eat. Then during the meal she ignored him because she doesn’t believe that he is worth her time, but still observes “sideways how he handled his knife and fork” (page 5) like he is a science experiment and she is recording her data not observing him as a person of equal stature. All of these actions show the reader that Hugla does not partake in real life but prefers her make believe land where all of her assumptions are right before interacting with anyone or anything. When she does this to Manly Pointer it allows him to figure out what he needs to be to contribute to her needs without her getting in the

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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

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Being forced to kill someone would be really emotional, but imagine if that person was your best friend. In John Steinbeck’s book “Of Mice and Men” George and Lennie have been together since they were kids. Lennie idolized George and George, as often as he gets mad at him, still loves Lennie. They run from their old town of Weed to get a job as ranch hands in Salinas Valley. From there they meet many people, most of which welcomed them, while some had a harder time accepting them.

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While the couple is on a date in the barn, and Manley brings out the whiskey, cards, and condoms from the hollowed Bible, Hulga realizes that Manley is not the Christian man he claimed to be and says, “Aren’t you … aren’t you just good country people?” (250). This is when she realizes that there is nothing such as a “good country people” because no one is who they claim to be. While it appears that Manley’s character changes from start to end, this is not true; he was hiding who he was at the core in order to produce the results that he wanted which was an exploitation of Hulga. Because of this, the interpretation changes.

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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

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Today, we are going try to talk about the short story of “Miss Brill”, written by Katherine Mansfield, about an older lady named Miss Brill who loves to go to the park and wear a fancy fur coat. The next story were going to talk about is “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” ,written by Flannery O’Connor, this story about a Grandmother going on a trip to Florida with her son and his family but she has a bad feeling about going… Miss Brill was a lovely and sweet older lady who just enjoyed going to the park on Sundays. She never missed a Sunday going to the park. It was a routine for Miss Brill to go and enjoy her day at the park.

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This sets the sitting for the story, and she also mentions the characters to begin it: “They were a couple.” She continues to describe the couple. The use of alliteration, “self-satisfied face,” highlights his personality a bit. Someone with that kind of appearance can be seen as cocky or confident. She states, “the woman was fadingly

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“...The hunting accident...the leg had been literally blasted off” (O’Connor 484), this sentence mentioned by the author symbolizes Hulga’s personality, because when something very valuable is taken away from someone and they are aware of it, but are not able to react to it, it could change a person drastically. Hulga could have been a totally different women if she had her leg, that’s why the author decided to give her a wooden leg. In the story the author mentions how Hulga does not care about her appearance at all. When she goes on a date with Manley Pointer she wears a dirty white shirt, applies Vapex as perfume, and never smiles. “...

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