The tale of Flannery O’Connor’s “Good Country People” is a story of an optimistic mother, Mrs. Hopewell, and a pessimistic daughter, Hulga, who lives on a farm together in rural Georgia. On the farm also lives the Freeman’s “good country people” (O’Connor, 482), the family was hired to help with the farm. One day a bible sales man, Manley Pointer, comes by the house in an attempt to make a sale, and ends up making a major impact on Hulga’s life. Hulga a doctor of philosophy values her contemptuous relationship with her mother, she also values her uniqueness, and she believes she is vastly more intelligent than others. These beliefs make Hulga a displeasure to be around and ultimately leads to her being deceived. Hulga lives with her mother, as if she is tolerating …show more content…
Hulga having a doctorate degree in philosophy, longs to “be away from good country people and at a university lecturing to people that knows what she is talking about” (485). She feels no one in the “red hills” (484) understands her unique outlook on the world. At the age of ten Hulga was involved in a hunting accident, that took one of her legs. She was once ashamed of her condition, however, after she went off to school she learned to value the artificial leg as an extension of her uniqueness. Hulga is “as sensitive about her artificial leg as a peacock about his tail” and “she cared for the leg, as someone would care for their soul” (493). Hulga also thought of herself as different because of her discovery that there is nothing. Hulga tells Marley Pointer that she does not believe in God (491) and has found a type of salvation because she “took the blindfold off, to see that there is nothing to see” (493). Hulga believes this revelation, is a form of enlightenment, freeing her to see the world as it really is; and those who have not come to the same conclusions, are foolish and worthy of her