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Joy-Hulga In Flannery O Connor's Good Country People

522 Words3 Pages

The physical impairments of Flannery O'Connor's "Good Country People" illustrate a deeper meaning of Joy-Hulga's handicaps. Joy-Hulga's heart condition, artificial leg and poor eyesight symbolize her inner impairments of emotion, intellect and spiritual capabilities. By including these impairments, it shows how Joy-Hulga really is as a person and the rationality behind what she believes in.

The heart condition and artificial leg symbolize the inner emotional detachment she has to her family and herself. Mrs. Hopewell describes Joy-Hulga as "bloated, rude and squint-eyed" and even despite these characteristics, Joy-Hulga's mother still continues to show her love and compassion (O'Connor 558). Yet Joy-Hulga lacks compassion for others and returns "this affection with exasperation and disgust", according to Kate Oliver from University of Central Florida ( 234). Joy-Hul does not show any positive emotions throughout the story, which help prove how she treats people. Secondly, Oliver states that, "[Joy-Hulga] emotionally …show more content…

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. However, this is not the case because Manley Pointer was able to deceive her and strip her of her only belief system which is her artificial leg. He does this by getting her to show him how to take it off. Therefor she can no longer move around and is left

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Manley and Hulga choose to go out for a stroll, and in the end they start discussing the idea of life, religion, presence, and God, however for the most part about Hulga 's wooden leg. Manley is extremely inspired by the wooden leg and requests that Hulga let him see it. Hulga, notwithstanding her doctorate in logic, doesn 't have a great deal of involvement with genuine circumstances of a sentimental sort. Manley focuses on this and entices a couple of kisses out of her. They go into the space of the horse shelter to have some protection, and Manley says he adores her.

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Flannery O’Connor’s “Good Country People" uses diction and characterization to establish the message of the story. This point is best exemplified by the characters names. For example, the name "Hopewell" characterizes not only the mother but also her daughter. Both of the women appear to be simplistic and believe that what is wanted in life can be achieved. Similarly, both of the women appear to be blind to the true world.

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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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(4) This quote elaborates how she’s never danced or done normal fun activities throughout her childhood and now adulthood. This excerpt also shows how Mrs. Hopewell can’t help but look at Hulga with pity, knowing that her wooden leg causes her the misfortune of never having a normal life. To combat this sense of pity and rejection from individuals, Hulga developed a “reject them before they reject me” ideal. This was created to protect herself from the constant rejection she faced and explains why she is always psychoanalyzing others; To try and find flaws in them before they find flaws in her. Hulga is missing a childhood filled with happiness and normality, a life past 45 years old, basic social interactions, and relationships with others who she

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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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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

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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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1559 Words | 7 Pages

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She didn’t like dogs or cats or birds or flowers or nature or nice young men” (O’Connor 485), Hulga’s personality might be like this because of her wooden leg. She might have given up on herself because she is not able to do everything she will like. For example, a wooden leg is ugly, uncomfortable, and prevents you from doing certain things. Therefore, the leg is preventing Hulga from being who she really wants to be, that is why she pushes away everything that will make her happy and what define who she really is. The author does not directly mention this in the story, but by the way Hulga acts the reader can conclude that the wooden leg symbolizes her new

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