Analysis Of Good Country People By Flannery O Connor

This short story authored by Flannery O’Connor illustrates the innocence and naiveté of
two of the main characters, Joy (Hulga) and her mother, both of whom reside alone in a rural area in the 1950’s era. The former has the misfortune of being taken advantage of by a traveling
bible salesman who succeeds in deceiving the two. He may not have raped the young woman, but does end up violating her in a terrible act.

Good Country People
The short story, Good Country People is a prime example of an age old battle: Good versus Evil. The story begins with a description of one of the four main characters, Mrs. Freeman, the wife of the hired man who came under the employment of Mrs. Hopewell. Although Mrs. Freeman spends a great

amount of time going to the home of her employer and relating the activities of her daughters, she is basically a simple, down to earth country woman; “good country people,” as the employer Mrs. Hopewell is quite fond of repeating.
The same could be said of Mrs. Hopewell, the owner of the operation called “The Oaks.” Though it appears that Mrs. Hopewell was busy with duties concerned with her business, as a good Christian woman she patiently endures the daily ramblings of Mrs. Freeman, finding ways to keep this busybody occupied, putting her to work alongside herself. As stated in an online analysis of characters in this novel, “both women are individuals who simplistically believe that what is wanted can be had-although each of them is, in her own way, blind to the world as it really is.” (Cliffnotes 2015). Mrs. Hopewell saw in her daughter and in her surroundings and the people involved the way that she wanted them to be. She, being the good woman that she is, overlooked her daughter Joy/Hulga’s personality shortcomings by adopting the mindset that her now thirty-five year old daughter was still a child. Joy on occasion would have a tantrum, especially when Joy felt that her mother did not understand her; after all, Joy was highly educated and looked down on the other characters, mother included, as being simple-minded people. Which may be true to a certain extent, but still the fact remains that they were good people; educated or not. She tries to maintain control over her life and according to a commentary by Karen Bernardo in an online analysis, “throughout the story it is clear that Hulga wants to have total control over her life and belief system, and thinks she’s doing very well with it.” (Bernardo 2014).
The daughter Joy did leave her home while she attended school, but it appears that she did not socialize with fellow students. In fact, being the shy and rather withdrawn person she became because of her handicap, she appears to have gone through her schooling years alone, not experiencing the college social scene we know that our students can become involved in when they are away from home for the first time, away from our constant vigilance as parents. So in a sense, her innocence and inexperience when it came to boys and men in this case, put her at a disadvantage. It allowed her to be taken advantage of by the wily, evil traveling bible salesman.
All three of the women in the story (and the reader, including myself) were taken in, so to speak, initially upon reading the description of this clumsy, silly, rather simple and poor man, just trying to make a few dollars by peddling his bibles.

He cast himself as being a “good Crustian,” simply trying to earn his way for the time being. He himself, upon initially meeting Mrs. Hopewell, called her a “good Crustian woman, he could see it in every line of her face.” He goes on to describe himself as simply a simple country boy. In doing so, he reinforces what we the reader believes about him upon reading the first description of this “walking, living and breathing evil.” He does his best to ingratiate himself to these hosts, the Hopewells. He overstayed his peddling visit, so late that the Mrs. Hopewell invites him to dine with her and the daughter Joy. This is when the evil man first lays eyes on the daughter, probably already noticing her handicap and her vulnerability; planning and scheming on how he will work himself into her good graces and then take advantage of her. He probably sees that she is capable of being taken in by somebody such as himself. After all, even though Joy was a highly educated girl/woman, she is naïve in a way that he can sense. He then plots to make his move, getting her to agree to meet up with him on Saturday; in her naiveté Joy dreams that night of seducing him, not knowing that the fateful outcome of the upcoming meeting with him will turn into a life-changing experience for her. According to an anonymous review online of OConnor’s short story, the following sentence describes Joy very well: “Somehow all that the daughter learned in her vast education is useless in the face of real evil.”(The Reading

Life-blogspot).
We know what happens in the end, the evil traveling salesman attempts to take advantage of Joy in the barn. She unwittingly thinks she is going to seduce him, not knowing that all the while he was planning to do her harm, and then steal her prosthetic leg; the thing that she keeps most hidden from the world, her handicap and her leg is something she does not want everybody to know about, for to her revealing this leg to this evil man is nothing short of exposing herself to the man in her nakedness, so to speak. And he, while merely out to collect another notch in his belt, so to speak, was more intent on adding her wooden leg to his collection. As he admits to her, he even “has a glass eye from a woman.” So he leaves her alone up in the hayloft and steals away with her precious leg, never to be seen again. Since this evil man was going by the alias of Manley Pointer, he more than likely moves onto another area in search of his next victim.