Good Country People

Throughout American history, people have had an image of how country folks should present themselves. For example, many people see them as being pious, strict, and honest. Flannery O’Connor, author of “Good Country People,” approaches the images societies have formed of country people from a different and eye-opening perspective. Her story goes against what society thinks of these lowly people. Although O’Connor may come across as being critical of others in her short story “Good Country People," she uses symbolism, character development, and irony, to get her point across, which is, there are hypocritical people in every part of society, whether it is in the city or in the country.

In her short story, O’Connor uses physical deformities to symbolize the character’s emptiness and a need for something greater such as spiritual fulfillment. Joy, also known as Hulga, is one of the characters in this narrative that has many disabilities. She has a prosthetic leg, a weak heart, and poor eyesight. Her false leg symbolizes pride. O’Connor wrote, “When Hulga stumped into the kitchen in the morning (she could walk without making the awful noise bus she made it-Mrs. Hopewell was certain-because it was ugly sounding); she glanced at them and did not speak” (447). This line suggests that Hulga deliberately makes the noise and does not try to hide her difference. According to Elizabeth Hubbard, a critic, there is more to the false leg than just pride. She wrote, “The leg’s wooden artificiality symbolizes the lack of life or vitality in that in which Hulga places her belief, the purely mechanistic way in which she understands sexuality, the body, and the human” (Hubbard 62). Hulga has never known the love of a man because she constantly looks d...

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...f Hulga’s attitude towards life and other people. She may be smart, but she has low self-esteem and to make her feel better about herself she treats everyone around her with distain. By acting like this she feels like she has control over her life.

O’Connor’s approaches the stereotyping of country people from an unusual viewpoint. Like many of her narratives, her characters are misfits, religiously empty, and disabled. She uses these characters to reveal the truth. The truth is that everyone is searching for something and sometimes people are blinded by pride, ignorance, pain, and false senses of security. O’Connor’s stories deal mainly with characters who have a spiritual emptiness with them. She uses symbolism, character development, and irony to portray life’s struggles and that some humans will use religion, stereotyping, and deformities to get what they want.