Good Country People

Mrs. Hopewell describes "good country people" as people who are "not trash." She repeatedly says they are the "salt of the earth." It becomes clear as the story unfolds that she considers people...

"Good country people" is a phrase that is echoed several times throughout this short story, and the connotation is that "country people" are honest, hardworking, and genuine souls who are in high...

Interestingly, O'Connor's selection of names for her characters works to establish their significance in the story. Joy Hopewell has changed her name to the ugly name of Hulga because she perceives...

Situational irony is a literary device in which the outcome of a character's actions or circumstances is the opposite of what is expected. In "Good Country People" by Flannery O'Connor, this tool...

In "Good Country People," Hulga learns that despite her belief in her own worldliness and sophistication, she is naive about evil. She takes Manley Pointer for one of the "good country people" he...

Mrs. Hopewell's last name represents her optimism, Christian beliefs, and good faith in people. She seems to barely perceive that evil exists in the world or that Manley Pointer is anything but the...

I agree that the central conflict in the novel is between Hulga and Pointer Manley. Hulga and Pointer both believe they are superior to the "good country people" all around them. Hulga, who has a...

Manley Pointer evidently has a fetish for objects related to disability, specifically for parts which have been tooled to replace what has been lost. He has a compunction to collect such objects...

Flannery O'Connor's short story "Good Country People" examines human nature and blind acceptance (based upon one's similarities with another's ideology). Short stories are broken down into five...

The story opens with Mrs. Freeman, Mrs. Hopewell's hired help, wearing a "neutral" expression. She won't reveal herself to others. We learn, too, that Mrs. Hopewell is condescending to Mrs....

Hulga and Manley are both quite fake people. Both use false names. Both dress strangely. Both have heart conditions which reflect their ill souls. Both planned to seduce one another as part of a...

By introducing the two older women first in the story, the author allows us an opportunity to understand Mrs. Hopewell's desire for her daughter Joy/Hulga to have a normal happy life. Mrs....

Sin is one of the critical themes of Christian teaching, and if we look towards Roman Catholic theology, we can observe the categorization of the seven deadly sins. I'd suggest that, thematically...

Two of the primary characters in Flannery O'Connor's short story "Good Country People" are Joy Hopewell and Manley Pointer. Joy has renamed herself Hulga, the ugliest name she can think of, and...

The tone of the story is ironic and mocking. As she often does, O'Connor simply gets inside the head of her main character or characters and conveys their thoughts in a deadpan, mocking, scathing...

Joy-Hulga has an incredible sense of superiority over everyone around her. She is college educated with a degree in philosophy and that alone makes her different and "better" than her mother Mrs....

Joy's mother suspects that the name Hulga is selected because it is the ugliest name that Joy could find. According to Joy/Hulga this is exactly the case. Joy/Hulga is a somewhat bitter young...

In "Good Country People," Flannery O'Connor satirizes certain qualities in human nature such as pretension, and she admires "a sense of being" achieved through a redemptive experience. "Foolishness...

In the short story "Good Country People" by Flannery O'Connor, the characters, particularly Joy, are taught the lesson that their pride in their own knowledge has blinded them to the lessons that...

The term grotesque in literature refers to writing about the physically or morally ugly, distorted, and repellent. In "Good Country People," O'Connor makes Hulga a grotesque. Hulga has an...

You will have to decide what position you would like to take in your thesis, but here are a few ideas. Flannery O'Connor's short story, "Good Country People," focuses on a mother/daughter...

The significance of the title "Good Country runs throughout the story. The title appears all through the story. Yet, each character has faults that demonstrate they are not “good country...

According to Lois Tyson, "[Marxist critical theory] attempts to reveal the ways in which our socioeconomic system is the ultimate source of our experience." Marxist critical theory often...

Flannery O'Connor's choice of the title "Good Country People" for her short story about religious small-town people in rural Georgia is considered entirely ironic. As the eNotes biography of...

The climax or high point of the story comes when, in the hay loft where they have gone to make love, Hulga realizes that Manley is smart and evil. Up until this point, she had accepted him as he...

Hulga Hopewell has a PhD in philosophy and reads books so abstruse and technical that her mother regards them as "some evil incantation in gibberish." However, she is easily deceived and robbed by...

Flannery O'Connor's "Good Country People" is a story of the foolhardiness of intellectual pretensions and the odd redemption of a young lady through her encounter with violence. Joy, who changes...

I do not see how Hulga could hang on to her confidence (or arrogance depending how you see her) after being so wrong about Manley. This, to me, suggests a necessary change of view for her. She will...

Mary Grace and Hulga are similar in being angry young adult women who are living with their mothers. They do not conform to Southern norms about how genteel ladies are supposed to act or look. Both...

Initially, we believe as readers, as do Hulga and Mrs. Hopewell, that Manley Pointer says "Chrustian" because he is a simply an ignorant country hick who has been taught to pronounce it that way....

O'Connor shows Hulga to be limited and blinded by her view that intelligence and education are incompatible with religious faith. Her belief in her own intelligence is a form of pride and...

Hulga Hopewell of "Good Country People" is an unusual character in Flannery O'Connor's fictional world. Hulga Hopewell’s loss of her leg at the age of nine from a gunshot determined her bitter...

Flannery O'Connor's "Good Country People" focuses on the story of a girl named Joy-Hulga Hopewell, who thinks that she is intellectually superior to those around her. Eventually, though, she is...

Hulga is Mrs. Hopewell’s only child. She is thirty-two years old and is highly educated. She has a PhD in Philosophy, and most of the villagers find her attitude quite incomprehensible. Mrs....

The two names represent separate identities residing in the one person. Joy is no longer joyful, having had her life ruined by an accident that caused permanent disability. As far as she's...

Hulga, Mrs. Hopewell’s only child, is handicapped. She lost her leg when she was only ten years old in a shooting accident. She wears an artificial leg. Hulga has an extraordinary relationship with...

Near the beginning of Flannery O'Connor's comic story "Good Country People," she narrates: And she said such strange things! To her own mother she had said without warning, without excuse,...

Set in what Flannery O'Connor called the "Christ-haunted South" her stories find religion as part of several dimensions of the narrative. In "Good Country People" the characters resonate with...

Many of the names in this story can be interpreted ironically: for example, Mrs. Hopewell wants to see the good in people, such as Manley, but she tends to allow her sense of her own superiority to...

One aspect of family that is important appears in the way Hulga interacts with her mother. Because she has an education, she feels that she is far superior to the "country folk" family from which...

“Good Country People” by Flannery O’Connor features two characters who hide behind their names. Joy Hopewell believes that no man will ever be interested in her because she has a prosthetic leg....

As with much of O'Connor's work, the titles often contain irony, and this irony is repeated in the plot of the story. The "good country people" are not really good - Mrs. Freeman is a chatterbox...

Within "Good Country People," Joy (or Hulga) exhibits a great deal of intellectual pride. She holds the people around her in contempt, viewing herself as their intellectual superior on account of...

Manley Pointer is successful in his misadventures of "Good Country People" because he taps into the weaknesses of the people whom he exploits, pretending to commiserate with them on their beliefs....

In "Good Country People," Mrs. Freeman and Mrs. Hopewell share an idea of who and what are good country people, while Joy/Hulga has a different idea, and Manley Pointer still another. For the two...

In Good Country People there are several characters who suffer from spiritual or physical weaknesses and they seem to have intellectual or spiritual challenges, too. Hulga is the prototypical...

Hulga is the representation of blindness in the story, although Manley Pointer serves as an example of a dearth of morality. Hulga considers herself quite experienced, far beyond the innocent,...

Although they are at odds and can't understand each other, Mrs. Hopewell and Hulga have much in common. They both see themselves as superior to others: Mrs. Hopewell on the basis of her position in...

In Flannery O'Connor's short story entitled "Good Country People," the title is ironic for a few reasons. Mrs. Hopewell is the character that uses the phrase most often. She first uses it to speak...

Theme is defined as the main idea or ideas that the author wants the reader to understand. Most pieces of literature (movies, TV scripts, plays, stories, novels, etc.) have many themes. You can...