An Analysis Of Flannery O Connor's Good Country People

Flannery O’Connor’s “Good Country People” is the tragic story of Joy, or Hulga. Hulga, in the attempt to seduce a supposedly simple-minded Bible salesman named Manley Pointer, ends up misjudging him and losing her leg. Throughout the story, the motivations for why Hulga pursues Manley, even when they are explicitly stated, are never quite clear. Why does Hulga attempt to seduce Manley? Why does she act the way she does in general? One might also ask what the motivation for doing something as insidious as what Manley does. By reading “Good Country People” in light of “vulgar” Marxism and Freudian psychoanalysis, one may open up and understand the actions of Hulga and Manley.
For Freud, the unconscious mind, the part of our psyche that is

hidden from consciousness, is tripartite: being composed of the id, ego, and superego. The id is the repository of all of mankind’s psychosexual desires and urges, otherwise known as the libido, and is antithetical to the superego, which is concerned with morality and rule following. It operates off of the pleasure principle, which means that the id is concerned with an unrelenting drive to satisfy its urges regardless of whether or not societal customs or moral values are transgressed. One of the most disturbing things about the pursuit of the pleasure principle is that it can even lead to self-destruction. Hulga’s tragic situation at the end of “Good Country People” is the result of her unrestrained id.
Hulga’s id manifests itself in numerous ways throughout the story, although each instance is rooted in a desire for domination or power.

For Hulga, she is better than everyone around her because of her education (she has a PhD in Philosophy), which leads her to look down on everyone else. She says that “if it had not been for this condition, she would be far from these red hills and good country people” (O’Conner 558). Because she seeks to fulfil her desire for dominance and the pleasure that comes with it, Hulga tries to make others’ lives unnecessarily difficult or by putting others down. She mockingly calls Glynese and Carramae, Mrs. Freeman’s daughters, “Glycerin and Caramel” (555) and she makes an ugly noise walking into the the kitchen just “because it was ugly sounding”, at least according to Mrs. Hopewell. Hulga also considers one of her major triumphs in life to be when her name became Hulga (her previous name was Joy). She says that “[s]he s[ees] it as the name of her highest creative acts” and that “[o]ne of her major triumphs was that her mother had not been able to turn her dust into Joy, but the greater one was that she h[as] been able to turn it herself into Hulga” (557). Hulga’s motivation was to retaliate against her mother, even though the name itself was ugly. The motivation was a desire for

dominance.
The greatest manifestation of Hulga’s id’s desire for dominance comes in her desire to seduce Manny.

She says that “[d]uring the night she imagined that she seduced him” and that she would use this opportunity to “t[ake] all of his shame away and turn it into something useful” (563). The amoral nature of the id is shown by how Hulga tries to manipulate Manny so that she can accomplish her purpose. When Manny kisses her, she says that the kiss “had more pressure than feeling behind it” and that “[e]ven before he released her, her mind, clear and detached and ironic anyway, was regarding him from a greater distance, with amusement but with pity” (564). Even though Hulga had never been kissed before, she regards the experience as unexceptional. For her, this experience is strictly business. Ultimately, the tragedy at the end of the story shows the potentially self destructive nature of the id’s relentless pursuit of the pleasure principle. While in the barn, Manny reveals himself for who he truly is: a con man. Even his Bibles are fraudulent; they contain a compartment for gambling materials and alcohol. Manny manages to take Hulga’s glasses and wooden leg and leave her stranded in the barn. Hulga, in the end, realizes that she, a woman with a PhD in Philosophy, has been outsmarted by someone that she thought was a dull Bible salesman. Hulga, because of her desire to exert her dominance and teach Manny, is left as a confused victim who is unable to escape from her

situation.
Not only does “Good Country People” show the dangers of the unrestrained pursuit of the pleasure principle, but it also provides the proletarian reader, who is a member of the working class and does not own his own means of production, with an example of revolutionary activity which can be uncovered by Marxist analysis. In “Good Country People”, there are two classes of people that are distinct from one another. Mrs. Hopewell and Joy are the bourgeoisie because Mrs. Hopewell has enough wealth to own property and have servants and because Joy lives a comfortable life with her mother and is highly educated. Mrs. Freeman, her daughters, and Manley are the proletariat since neither of them have the wealth that allows Mrs. Hopewell to possess the private property (including the means of production) that she owns.
The ideology that is present throughout the text is one that reifies the already existing class relationship that exists between the characters. This ideology is most apparent in the interaction between the characters. Mrs. Hopewell, as a member of the bourgeoisie, takes an endearing and condescending view of her servants: which is shown in her calling her servants “good country people”. When thinking about the Freemans, Mrs. Hopewell “realize[s] that nothing is perfect and that in the Freemans she ha[s] good country people and that if, in this day and age, you get good country people, you had better hang on to them” (556) and of Manley she says that he is “just good country people, you know … just the salt of the earth” (562) and that “he [is] so simple”. For Mrs. Hopewell, to be “good country people”, one must be simple and must not have much material wealth. They are also hard workers and sincere people. Joy, as a highly educated woman and the daughter of Mrs. Hopewell, shares the same view. She wishes to educate Manley and to “t[ake] his remorse in hand and [change] it into a deeper understanding of life” (563).
This view of the proletariat as simple workers can even influence the proletariat itself. False consciousness is the idea that the proletariat comes to accept its material circumstances (economic relations) and historical situation (the ideological atmosphere) as natural and acceptable. Mrs. Freeman, when talking about Manley at the end of the story, says “Some can’t be that simple … I know I never could” (568). Mrs. Freeman, although in the same class and most likely just as simple as Manley, tries to put herself in the realm of the bourgeoisie and also unquestioningly accepts her role as Mrs. Hopewell’s servant and her proletarian status.
The capitalistic ideology that is dominant throughout the text is ultimately inverted at the end.. Rather than Hulga’s plan going through, in which she uses Manley to teach him a lesson, Manley, a member of the proletariat, successfully tricks Hulga and steals her glasses and her wooden leg. The theft of both of these items represents the overthrow of the two, bourgeois dominated aspects of society: the superstructure, which is the cultural and ideological aspect of society, and the base, which is the economic relations that make up a society. The glasses represent the superstructure because glasses are how one is able to see the world and interpret it (like an ideology) and the wooden leg represent the base because the leg is the basis for movement and direct physical experience of the world (like the base). Manley, a proletarian, having these items gives him control of the base and superstructure, which is necessary for a communistic society to come about. Therefore, the act of stealing the glasses and wooden leg is a revolutionary act and provides and example for how the proletariat, in their own way, can overthrow the bourgeoisie.
“Good Country People” tells the story of Hulga. Hulga is a bourgeois woman with a PhD in Philosophy. She encounters a young Bible salesman whom she attempts to seduce. The Bible salesman tricks Hulga and ends up stealing her wooden leg and her glasses and leaves her in the barn. By using freudian psychoanalysis, one can understand the motivations that lead to Hulga’s downfall in terms of her having an overbearing id that, in its relentless drive to satisfy the pleasure principle, became self-destructive.