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
When Mrs.Hopewell needed help in the fields, and her only option was Hulga's help. In the story it claims, “… when Joy had to be impressed by these services, her remarks were usually so ugly and her face so glum”(2). Hulga's attitude was unnecessary, but her mother accepted it because of her disability. Hulga knew her mother accepted her behavior because of her guilt about Hulga's wooden leg. At the dinner table with Mrs. Hopewell and Manley, it says, "Joy had given him one look on being introduced to him and then throughout the meal had not glanced at him again.
1. Joy changes her name to “Hulga” because she is acting in an act of rebellion to her mother. She knows her mother’s wants her to have a really pretty name and “Hulga” is the ugliest name Joy could think of that her mom will hate. Mrs. Hopewell is for sure that Hulga looked for that name until she finally found the ugliest name she could think of and after that Joy legalized it so it would be for sure certain. Hulga’s poor health keeps her at her home all the time.
O’Connor’s depiction of the wooden leg in the story is a mild comparison to the amputation of her very soul threatened by imminent death relating to Lupus. To O’Connor her life became ugly and she voiced this matter of fact to Langkjaer in her comments about a self portrait that she had painted that was not flattering or attractive. Just as Hulga was highly educated, Flannery did know that she had high intelligence though she couldn’t spell and wasn’t good at Math. When her once last chance at love before her death was gone, it sparked emotions that had to quickly be dealt with and so O'Connor penned her masterpiece about her pain, her broken heart, her broken spirit and broken soul. Through this experience of loss of love and her imminent decline fo her life to Lupus, the author wrote a story to cleanse her healthy mind of pain and sorrow.
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
In a sense, O’Connor is using Mrs. Hopewell to symbolically represent society’s expectations of women. Hulga defies these expectations through her Nihilistic lifestyle. However, in her conversations with Manley Pointer, Hulga contradicts this
The question of meaning in life is a problem discussed intensively in different scientific areas such as psychology, philosophy, sociology, and even anthropology. This book by Susan Wolf offers a perspective which approaches the problem from a philosophical point of view. However, her focus is not on the question of the ultimate meaning of human life, as in some previous philosophical works, but on the question of how people seek and maintain meaningful lives. This focus shifts Wolf ’s work more to the psychological point of view, because it does not ask whether the world and human life has a higher purpose; rather, it asks what are the conditions in which a person experiences that his or her life is meaningful? Or, in other words, he or she
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
Hulga, intelligent but naïve, is tricked by the dashing bible salesman, Manley Pointer. She owns glasses and one prosthetic leg, which she can't live without. Until one-day Hulga's perfect night was turned upside down. The drastic turn started when Manley slithered on of his many lovely lies to her and said, "I like girls that wear glasses. "(O'Connor, 7), and he reeled her out to the barn by telling her what she wanted to hear.
Veering away from his acoustic rock sound, Aussie charmer Vance Joy will appear on one of the most anticipated romantic movie Paper Towns. His voice will grace the romantic movie with the song ‘Greatest Summer.’ The movie stars super model turned actress Cara Delevigne and is written by none other than Fault in our Stars author John Green. Joy’s Greatest Summer depicts the gist of this teen movie plot. The line ‘The kid you used to be.
The key to happiness has caused many controversial arguments. It is such a vague idea that many people have their own straightforward examples. People have their own definition for it and it is most likely, based off of their lifestyle and their beliefs system. In “The Joy Luck Club” by Amy Tan, happiness is constantly questioned if you look in between the character’s life stories and their obstacles, but from what I could gather, their is a concept to it. The concept is “happiness is what you make it to be”.
“...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. “...
She saw birds flying, blue skies, and new spring life blooming everywhere. Lastly, Mrs. Mallard actually received her freedom while having an epiphany in her bedroom, even though it was stripped from her soon after when her husband, Brently Mallard, came through the door alive as he could be. She had a heart attack from the realization that she would have to go back to her old life of pleasing her husband. On the other hand, Aunt Jennifer never actually received her freedom from her husband. He would always have that hold on
Happiness has a broad meaning. One may consider it to be having money, love, or even just enjoying the little things in life. There is no real definition for happiness because it all depends on a person 's perspective of life. Happiness is more about the way you think and act rather than a material possession. It is not something that has a physical form, or that is worth something valuable, yet everybody seeks it.
Being known as Mrs. Mallard is accustomed to Louise, but the desire for that seems to be missing. After hearing of her husband’s death, she feels a “possession of self-assertion which she suddenly recognized as the strongest impulse of her being” (14). She believes that freedom can finally stand as her first name. Bondage and oppression are lifted from her shoulders, or so she thinks. Louise thinks she is free from the binding of her marriage, but the whole time her life remains constant, despite her unawareness.
