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Good Country People Hulga Summary

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In “Good Country People” the main character, Hulga behaves nothing like the traditional women of the time were expected to behave. Hulga’s actions and beliefs were completely against the socially constructed gender roles of 1950’s America. First, Hulga was an educated woman who found pride in being intellectually superior to other people. Hulga acquired a PhD in Philosophy which was very uncommon for a women to do so at the time. In fact, in the 1950’s when this short story was published, women were expected to aspire to be more of housewife than an educated woman, “A 1959 study determined that 37 percent of female college students were leaving school before they graduated, most for marriage” (Gale). Moreover, Hulga’s mother, Mrs. Hopewell,
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