prideful in ways that make one another miserable. Hopewell is prideful in her self-identification with respectability. At the same time, Hulga holds a pronounced sense of intellectual superiority over the people around her, on account of her education and atheistic worldview. Meanwhile, there is Manley Pointer, who is able to exploit this pride, appealing to Hopewell's sense of country respectability and Hulga's intellectual pretensions. In that respect, their pride ultimately renders them vulnerable to manipulation.

In addition to being a story about sin (particularly the sin of pride), this story can also be framed as one about an encounter with evil. In many respects, Hulga (sheltered as she is) seems somewhat naive about the depths to which human depravity can sink. This will change, however, when she encounters and is taken advantage of by Manley Pointer (who is actually a con artist). Pointer is a victimizer, and in this, he represents a force of active malice in the world.

Flannery O’Connor lived in and wrote about the south. Most of her stories have themes of religion, race, and class.  In “Good Country People,” religion comes to the forefront.  As the story progresses, three different views of religion wage a battle for which there is no clear winner: the sinful Christian, the hypocrite; and the atheist.

The sinful Christian

Mrs. Hopewell brandishes her religion to place herself as a judge of people as decent and respectable. She is a sinner herself despite her attempts to use her Christianity as a barrier. Mrs. Hopewell tells Manley:

I think there aren’t enough good country people in the world! I think that’s what’s wrong with it… You don’t see any more real honest people unless you go way out in the country.

 Of course, this judgment of Manley is incorrect since he is a liar. The name "Hopewell" (hope well) characterizes the mother. She fails to see the world as a mixture of good and evil.  This leads her to assume that the world is simpler than it is.  Her sin is thinking that she as a Christian can make judgments about everyone. 

Hypocrisy

Manly Pointer appears to be the “good country people” representative.  He just sells Bibles and goes around the country trying to get the good book in people’s homes and make some money for himself.  In the barn loft with Hulga, the reader meets the real Pointer. He is the ultimate deceiver.  When he pulls out his perverted accoutrements hidden in a cutaway Bible, even Hulga, the atheist, is appalled. 

O’Connor uses Pointer as an example of the hypocritical aspect of society that pretends to be a Christian, but actually scams and hurts people.  He tells Hulga at her most vulnerable point:

The boy’s mouth was set angrily. “I hope you don’t think that I believe in that crap! I may sell Bibles but I know which end is up and I wasn’t born yesterday and I know where I’m going.”

To exacerbate Hulga’s humiliation, he steals her glasses and her prosthetic leg. He adds them to his perverted collection. Knowing that Hulga had felt superior to him, as he leaves her in the barn loft, he tells her that she is not as smart as she thinks she is.

This is not the first time that Manly Pointer has hurt someone.  Now, he will continue on treating people like fools and luring them into his deception. He stands as the representation of the evil aspect of man.

Atheism

Joy-Hulga’s life began in pain with a gun accident literally blowing off the bottom half of her leg.  From that point, she separated herself from her family and the rest of society.  Using her time earning degrees, she holds a PhD in philosophy.  Until now, she has professed absolute atheism. To Hulga, there is no god and there is no afterlife; life ends at death.

In an address delivered before a Southern Writers Conference, O'Connor commented on the wooden leg:

We're presented with the fact that the Ph.D. is spiritually as well as physically crippled . . . and we perceive that there is a wooden part of her soul that corresponds to her wooden leg."

Since this is the case, it is not surprising that Pointer's comment that it is her leg which "makes her different" produces the total collapse of Hulga's plan. She really wants that Christian “moment of grace.”  Her philosophical approach has not allowed her to admit this, not even to herself. Atheism, in the end, is not a reality.

Flannery O’Connor’s story titled “Good Country People” is full of dichotomies or oppositions. Among such opposites (or apparent opposites) are the following:

• Mrs. Freeman is lower-class and cynical; Mrs. Hopewell is middle-class and (as her name implies) optimistic.
• Mrs. Hopewell’s optimism contrasts even more strongly with the extreme cynicism of her daughter, Joy/Hulga.
• Hulga, the arrogant intellectual, is the opposite of the apparently “normal” girls, Glynese and Carramae.
• Mrs. Hopewell is very particular about whom she hires as help on her farm, but she eventually hires the Freemans “because there were no other applicants.”
• Mrs. Hopewell considers herself “a woman of great patience,” whereas Hulga is easily angered.
• Mrs. Hopewell is utterly conventional in her thinking (as her tendency to speak in clichés suggests), whereas Hulga thinks of herself as utterly unconventional (which is a fairly ironic self-perception since she is completely conventional in her own ways).
• Mrs. Freeman and Hulga seem to be opposites (one lower-class and the other highly intellectual), but they actually have much more in common (especially their cynicism) than either would admit.
• Mrs. Hopewell dresses well and is careful about displaying good manners; Hulga is just the opposite.
• Hulga considers herself profound and her mother superficial, although each is superficial in her own way.
• Hulga considers herself an atheist and nihilist (someone who believes in nothing) and thus seems to have nothing in common with Manley Pointer, the Bible salesman.  Of course, by the end of the story she realizes that Pointer is perhaps an even greater nihilist than she is.
• Hulga at first seems to feel contempt for Pointer, although eventually she is seduced by him.
• Hulga is contemptuous of religion, and, in that respect she seems to differ from Pointer. Later, of course, we realize that he is, if anything, even more contemptuous of religion than she is.
• Hulga seems completely uninterested in Manley Pointer, but in fact she is fascinated by him.
• Hulga thinks that she is far more intelligent and shrewd than the apparently stupid and naïve Manley Pointer, but of course Manley eventually teachers her that this is a false dichotomy:

Her voice when she spoke had an almost pleading sound. “Aren’t you,” she murmured, “aren’t you just good country people?”

The boy cocked his head. He looked as if he were just beginning to understand that she might be trying to insult him. “Yeah,” he said, curling his lip slightly, “but it ain’t held me back none. I’m as good as you any day in the week.”

In short, O’Connor’s story is full of dichotomies, some of them real, but some of them only imagined.

Social contrasts and conflicts of various kinds are depicted or implied in Flannery O’Connor’s short story “Good Country People.” Such conflicts include the following:

• Conflicts or contrasts between the values of conventional young women (such as Mrs. Freeeman’s daughters) and unconventional young women (such as Joy/Hulga).
• Contrasts between the values of “good country people” (such as the Freemans) and “trash” (the kinds of workers Mrs. Hopewell does not want to hire). As the narrator puts it, the reason Mrs. Hopewell had employed the Freemans for such a long time

was that they were not trash.  They were good country people.

• Contrasts and conflicts between middle-class people such as Mrs. Hopewell and lower-class people such as the Freemans.
• Conflicts between parents (such as Mrs. Hopewell) who have one set of values and children (such as Joy/Hulga) who have a very different set of values.
• Conflicts between those who like to think of themselves as optimists (such as Mrs. Hopewell) and those who are natural pessimists (such as Joy/Hulga).
• Conflicts between people who are satisfied members of the middle class (such as Mrs. Hopewell) and people who reject middle-class values (such as Joy/Hulga).
• Conflicts between those who are not especially highly educated (such as Mrs. Hopewell) and those who like to consider themselves intellectuals (such as Joy/Hulga).
• Conflicts between those who profess belief in God (such as Manley Pointer) and those who reject religion (such as Joy/Hulga).

In short, O’Connor’s story is a story brimming with conflicts (or potential conflicts) of all sorts, but these are presented in ways that make them seem funny rather than pitiful or tragic. Interestingly enough, in this story, unlike in many others by O'Connors, racial conflicts are not emphasized.