Good Country People Sparknotes

Flannery O’Connor publication “Good Country People” is a short story that is set on a small tenant farm in Georgia. An accident leaves Joy, the protagonist in the fiction, with one leg and this disfigurement leaves her emotionally scarred. She distances herself from the real world to her intellect world. She changes her name from Joy to Hulga since she feels disturbed by her surroundings and health condition. The book focuses on the themes of alienation and identity. This short story is an exciting piece of art that uses the character Hulga to demonstrate how physical challenges, intellectualism and social class play a role in developing one’s identity.
Flannery has a creative way to achieve her interesting piece of art through characters in

the “Good Country People.” The characters have been used to express the different themes and the development of individuals’ identity. Hulga is the central character. She is a thirty-two-year-old Mrs. Hopewell’s daughter who is well-educated with a Ph.D. She loses her leg when she is a little girl. Mrs. Hopewell, Hulga’s mother is a divorcee, who owns a farm. Manley Pointer is a Bible salesman. His name is a witticism on his appearance, in the novel he is described as a skinny man, and he does not appear manly. In the novel, Manley challenges Hulga’s intellectualism. Mrs. Freeman is a woman living next door to Mrs. Hopewell. She is Mrs. Hopewell’s employee working on the tenant farm. Glynese Freeman and Carramae Freeman are Mrs. Freeman’s daughters. Glynese is eighteen and admired by many and Carramae, on the other hand, is only fifteen years but married and pregnant. “Good Country People” is divided into four sections that O’Connor uses to stress the relationship that exists between the four central characters of the book. By these sections, O’Connor manages to establish the parallels that exist between the characters of Hulga, Manley Pointer, Mrs. Freeman, and Mrs. Hopewell. At the same time, O’Connor is able to provide details that give emphasis to the different facets of the four individual main characters.
Hulga’s education makes her think that her knowledge makes her intelligent to an extent that she has nothing more to learn from other people.

She has a doctoral degree in philosophy. Her condition after the accident keeps haunting and forces her to live on a rural small farm surrounded by low educated people. She lost her leg while she was only ten years old. Hulga feels that she is crippled both physically and emotionally. Hulga’s decision to become an intellectual being was meant to compensate for her grief. She believes that the formal education she has acquired makes her more superior than the “unintelligent, inferiors” surrounding her. Hulga does not want to identify with the people in the neighborhood; she believes that they have nothing in common. Manley, the Bible salesman, tries to challenge Hulga’s view so as to change her perception, but Hulga thinks that Manly is not different from the “good country people.” She believes that Manley is too inferior to deceive her. Manley tells Hugla that an individuals’ education, social or economic class does not determine their ability to make way in the world. Hulga wants to become as unpleasant as possible as she seems rude to everyone. She resents Mrs. Hopewell, her mother because she does not accept her new identity. Unlike her mother, Hulga does not “hope well” as she claims that her accident took away her hope and faith by taking her leg. Flannery O’Connor also uses Hulga’s background to show how social class divisions in

the society were used in the identification in the 1950s in United States. Mrs. Hopewell, Hulgas mother, thinks that she is better than her employees. She sees them as people who are beneath her identity. She undermines other people because she is a landowner and wealthy. “. . . The reason for her keeping them for so long was that they were not trash. They were good country people” (555). In this passage, she goes ahead to divide her employees into different categories where some are “good country people” while others are “trash.”
Hugla feels like she is above any faith, and she wants to be identified as an elite intellect.

She believes that having faith in God is for the inferior “creatures” of the “Good People Country.” She claims that she is experienced and so, she does not need to have faith. She believes that there is no good or evil. On the other hand, Manley is a man of faith. Manley Pointer, the traveling Bible salesman, represents the Christian morality in the “Good People Country.” Manley uses his Christian faith to get the things that he need including food, money and Hugla. Manley seduces Hugla, but she claims that he does not appeal to her emotions. Hugla learns the hard way that there is evil when Manley took her leg and refused to give her back. She realizes that this world has both good and bad. Manleys’ Christian identity turns out to be fake. Manley seems to be a con artist who uses the Christian character to win not only sexual favors from Hulga but also her prosthetic leg. Hulga’s manner of dressing brings conflict between her and her mother. Mrs. Hopewell thinks that the dress her daughter is wearing is for a six-year old. This behavior shows that despite Hulgas’ Ph.D and changing her identity by name she still behaves like a small child. Joy’s name change to Hulga was also a cause of conflict between her and her mother. Mrs. Hopewell saw these actions as immature and rebellious. Mrs. Hopewell feels that her daughter pondered until she decided to give herself the ugliest name she

could ever think of in any language. Mrs. Hopewell is ashamed to be identified as Hulgas’ mother, and she keeps praising Carramae and Glynese. This conflict makes Hulga make the decision that she does not want any meaningful relationship with her mother. She tells her mother “If you want me, here I am-LIKE I AM.” (556). Mrs. Hopewell sees life as simple and for this reason she is unable to understand her daughters’ complex personality.
From O’Connor’s book, Hulga failure to overcome the challenges by Manley is ironic despite her defiant attitude. Hulga is an ungrateful cripple as she insists on defining herself and rejects the customs of the people around her. Hulga thought that her knowledge would solve her emotional and physical conditions, but it ends up like it creates even more problems. Her mother is not proud of her as she keeps praising Mrs. Freemans’ daughters. Her mother does not also like her new name “Hulga” and describes it as the ugliest name that one can ever think of in any language. Her mother does not like her dressing too and describes her behaviors as immature and rebellious. Manley is among the “inferior creatures” to Hulga. She even thought that she is too smart to be deceived by him, but Manley takes away her prosthetic leg and walks away with it leaving the intelligent Hulga helpless. Despite Hulga’s self-definition, she still feels incomplete to an extent she claims that the accident took away her faith and hope. After Hulga’s spending his school life years and attaining a doctoral degree in philosophy, she still comes back to the farm and continues living among the people she undermines. Hulga’s knowledge was still inadequate as she never believed that there was evil and good. She only came to know that both good and bad exists in the encounter with Manley. From Hulgas’ character, it’s evident that the intellectualism and social class cannot be used to compensate for an individual’s physical challenges. We also learn that despite our level of education, we do not become superior to other people as they may still be smart than us in other fields.