ENG 113
Instructor Risch
Donna Stevens
January 23, 2011
“Good Country People” by Flannery O’Connor
My initial response to the reading was that I liked it more than “A Good Man is Hard to Find” because the villain got what he wanted without having to kill anyone. The villain was a Bible salesman with a prosthesis fetish. He, like Hulga the main character, pretended to be something he was not. In the end, I feel that he taught Hulga a valuable lesson. I think she learned that not everyone in the world will be “turned off” by her prosthetic leg. Therefore, it would probably be safe to change her name back to Joy and simply enjoy the life she has been given and not dwell on the one assumed imperfection of her body. The story gained my interest when Manley, the Bible salesman, waited for Hulga at the gate. The theme of the story is that the imperfections that we hold so tenderly against ourselves may be fascinations to others. One man’s trash is another man’s treasure in other words. The conflict is that Joy thinks she is so repulsive that she renames herself Hulga , a name that she feels defines her current self and that she could never live up to the name Joy. The plot thickens as Manley’s eyes glisten at the sight of her “imperfection”.
Hulga’s conviction that intelligence and education are incompatible with religious faith are just a small part of her rebellion against her mother. She does not believe anything her mother says. Starting with the fact that her mother sees her as “a child though she was thirty-two years old and highly educated” (460). Just like Hulga was convinced she was not a child she was also convinced she could not be pursued like a whole woman could. Furthermore, religion must not have any merits because since when has her mother been right about anything?
It is significant that Mrs. Hopewell’s daughter has two names because Joy is the illusion that the mother has for her daughter. Hulga is the illusion that the daughter has for herself. The name Joy characterizes her as young, happy and free. Joy is the name of an independent woman who can make her own decisions. Joy is who Mrs. Hopewell wishes she had for a daughter. Joy is comparable to Mrs. Freeman’s girls whom Mrs. Hopewell constantly contrasts against Joy. The name Hulga characterizes the daughter to be a sort of Frankenstein’s daughter. This lumbering stump of a figure banging about the house is the image the daughter decides to exude.
Mrs. Freeman and Mrs. Hopewell are introduced before Hulga so that Mrs. Freeman can be seen as a person who lives honestly. Mrs. Freeman is not trying to be someone that she is not. She was described as “steady and driving,” this certainly contrasts to Mrs. Hopewell (460). Mrs. Freeman represents normal, steady, down to earth people, actual “good country people” (460). Mrs. Hopewell only hopes she could be as good. Mrs. Freeman’s name illustrates that by being real and down to earth, she is free. Mrs. Hopewell tries to shape her daughter into “good country people” by constantly telling people that “Glynese and Carramae were two of the finest girls she knew” (460). At least she could tell others that if she could not have a fine daughter, she had the good sense to hire someone who does.
The conflict in this story is that Hulga is so ashamed of her prosthetic leg that she hates the world and decides to make life for everyone near her just as miserable. The conflict is resolved when the Bible salesman turns out to have a fetish for prosthesis. He is only interested in her because of her leg. She assumed men would never be interested in her because of her leg. Turns out, Manley was only interested in the leg. She was left without the one thing that she abhorred the most. Now, she could never again safely assume that she must live out the rest of her life with her mother because her leg made her an obnoxious monster. To Manley, her leg was her only redeeming quality.
Hulga and Manley play several jokes on each other like Manley convincing her to tell him where her leg joins on. She was convinced by his words “it’s what makes you different” that she was staring at “real innocence” when in fact, he just wanted to take the leg for his collection (472). Hulga tricks him when she told him she was “seventeen” and then later when things got serious, she admitted that she was “thirty years old” when actually, she was “thirty-two years old” (461, 468, 471). By lying about her age, she thought she could make herself more attractive to him. This backfired because he did not care about her at all. Age really did not matter in their relationship. The overall theme of one man’s trash is another man’s treasure relates to these deceptions because the thing that made her different did not make her ugly.
The phrase “good country people” is an appropriate title because none of the people except for Mrs. Freeman were actually good country people. The contrast is in the other characters. The others lived their lives as a lie. Hulga lied about her authentic self because she knew she was not a monster because she wore a prosthetic leg, but she chose to be miserable about it. Mrs. Hopewell lied about her authentic self because she liked to tell people things that would give them an impression that she was wise and in control when nothing could be further from the truth. Manley, well he was a good country conman. O’Connor talks about Mrs. Freeman’s down to earth honest approach even until the end of the story. It was Mrs. Freeman that remarked “some can’t be that simple” which spoke to the Manley reference (473) . Manley was anything but a simple man. He was the “evil-smelling onion shoot” that she dug out of the ground (473).
The Bible salesman’s final words to Hulga are “You ain’t so smart. I been believing in nothing ever since I was born!” (473). The religious values expressed are those of rebellion. The two don’t see a need for religious values. They have never seen themselves as being bad enough to need salvation. Therefore they say they believe in nothing.
Ironically, Hulga has been using the prosthetic leg as an excuse to be nasty to her mother and not to pursue an independent life. This leg has been a comfort to her by providing an excuse for being lazy and lifeless. The contrast to Hulga’s life choice is presented in the first paragraph when O’Connor describes Mrs. Freeman as “steady and driving” (460). Her comfortable, nasty, convenient excuse for having no life has been snatched away by an admirer. Now she has to deal with the fact that the thing she hated the most is now a perverted man’s prized possession.
The use of a limited omniscient narrator contributes to the story’s effects because it shows the contrast of actual “good country people” like Mrs. Freeman and her girls to the rest of the characters. If the story was told from Hulga’s point of view, the reader would not see this contrast and have this holistic view of the story. If Hulga told the story, it would probably just be a woe is me story punctuated with an “I can’t believe he stole my leg!”
Works Cited
O'Connor, Flannery. "Good Country People." The Bedford Introduction to Literature. Michael Meyer. Massachuttes: Bedford, 2011. Print.
