Good Country People is a short allegorical story, written by Flannery O’Connor, about the dual nature of religious workers, loneliness, and egocentrism. Indeed, even the characters’ names possess a hidden meaning about their appearance, personality, or life. The story commences with the description of two old ladies and their children who belong to two different social classes. Mrs. Freeman is a maid in Mrs. Hopewell’s house, and the former was described as a woman with two primary unpleasant facial expressions for the public. Since the story was told from Mrs. Hopewell’s viewpoint, she was presented as a calm, polite, and tolerant person, noticing but forgiving other people’s flaws, including her daughter Joy, who chose the formal name Hulga. Their bitter coexistence was interrupted by a 19-year-old handsome man, Manley Pointer, who sold Bibles door-to-door and claimed to have the same heart disease as Joy but appeared to be a criminal. Through symbolism, O’Connor was able to convey the characters’ unique features with their names, connection to parents with Hulga’s wooden leg, Joy’s mindset with her glasses, and Pointer’s non-religiousness with the hollow Bible.
The first symbol is the characters’ names that partly represent their fates and personalities. For example, the reader is not provided with the first names of Mrs. Freeman and Mrs. Hopewell. They acquired their last names from marriages, indirectly pointing to the only function that women could have in the South at that time, indicating the forced fate that is opposite of their actual situation. For instance, Mrs. Freeman is not a slave, but she is not free because she is a maid, while Mrs. Hopewell is hopeless. The women’s personalities were revealed in their dialogues and their children. Both are polite and consider themselves good individuals who sometimes have to endure other people’s rudeness or ignorance. Mrs. Freeman’s daughters, Glynese and Carramae, red and blond girls, whom Joy associated with Glycerin and Caramel, indicating a lack of respect for their chosen life path (O’Connor 2). Moreover, Joy was never joyful in reality; thus, she changed her name to Hulga to complete the image of an ugly person to avoid the traditional path of all South women. Specifically, she seemed to want to avoid marriage and childbirth.
The second allegoric element in this story was Hulga’s wooden leg. This symbol represents her inability to become independent of her mother. Indeed, she still lives with her parent, is unemployed, and does not have relationships with other people. It appears that she was born with a congenital heart defect that, in the best-case scenario, would allow her to live until her forties (O’Connor 5). Still, Mrs. Hopewell wanted her daughter to get married at the right age. However, an accidental gunshot wound at the age of ten became a pivotal point in Joy’s life when she was implanted with the wooden leg and escaped the usual fate of her female counterparts. Despite a PhD degree, the girl did not work and lived with her mother, waiting for her own death. The appearance of Pointer gave her a tiny hope for a new life. However, the girl’s dreams did not become a reality because Hulga was deceived by the young man and lost her artificial leg. Nevertheless, the disappearance of her prosthesis was an allegory for the opportunity to detach from the parental home and start an adult life.
The third allegoric element of the short story was Hulga’s glasses that Manley stole along with her wooden leg. Hulga’s glasses are her vision and ability to see the world clearly, both literally and figuratively. However, she was ready to refuse her beliefs for this man. Thus, she allowed him to take away her glasses during the moment of intimacy: “when her glasses got in his way, he took them off her and slipped them into his pocket” (O’Connor 13). Since Pointer escaped, Hulga was left without glasses because she no longer could look at the world through the lens of her old mindset.
The fourth symbol was the young man’s suitcase with two Bibles. Indeed, one of the Bibles was an empty container for whiskey, cards, and condoms (O’Connor 15). The hollow represented not only Pointer’s absence of Christian beliefs but was also an allegory for the insincerity of some religious workers, who talk about God and are simultaneously involved in sinful acts. Furthermore, this picture and the young man’s altered behavior not only ruined Hulga’s hope for a different future but also confirmed her atheist believes.
In summary, O’Connor’s Good Country People represents the issues of the dishonesty of religious workers, the difficulty of detaching from parental supervision, and the obsession of individuals with their goodness and other people’s faults. This story showed a painful experience of a young woman with poor health who failed to build social connections despite several university degrees. Four symbolic elements in this short story uncovered Hulga’s journey to detachment from her mother and old beliefs. The first was the characters’ names that described their appearance and personalities. The second was Hulga’s artificial leg as an anchor to her mother. The third was Hulga glasses, which the young man stole from her smoothly, becoming the critical facilitator of disillusionment. The fourth was Pointer’s suitcase with fake Bibles as a symbol of the falsity of his religiousness. Overall, the evil act of the young man left Hulga in rage and disappointment but with a more realistic perception of the world.
Works Cited
O’Connor, Flannery. Good Country People. Gothic Digital Series, 1955.