In Good Country People, the author expressed different aspects of what is considered good country people. Flannery O’Connor’s purpose is to get readers to understand deeply that she was using words to represent the characters’ personalities. I can see the play on words in the title and characters’ names. The story begins with Mrs. Freeman and Mrs. Hopewell as they discussed their duties and children, mainly how they raised them to be good country people. Discussion of Mrs. Hopewell’s daughter takes
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Flannery O’Connor’s “Good Country People” is a short story set on a small tenant farm in rural Georgia, where an accident leaves Joy, the protagonist, with one leg. This disfigurement has a profound impact on Joy’s life, leaving her emotionally scarred and causing her to distance herself from the real world. As a result, she decides to seek refuge in both education and intellectual advancement. Additionally, since Joy feels that her name represents something she does not feel, she decides to change
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Flannery O’Connor “Good Country People”: Questions 1. The relationship between Joy-Hulga Hopewell and Manley Pointer started as an attempt for romantic relations; at least the woman believed the salesman fell in love with her or had some similar feeling. Hulga decided to use his feelings and try to seduce Manley to “reckon with his remorse… [take it] in hand and [change] it into a deeper understanding of life” (O’Connor 12); the woman thought the Bible salesman needed such procedure to become more
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Hulga, or Joy as she was originally named, is the lead female role in Flannery O’Connor’s “Good Country People”. It is rather ironic that she was first named Joy; Hulga represents many things, Joy not being one of them. With her natural disease and inability to live a normal life, surely no one can judge her lack of enthusiasm for life. Hulga desperately would like to live outside of her Mother’s house, but lacks the proper health stability that is necessary for living with no one else. She has
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Many people hold destructive opinions without considering their full implications. “Good Country People” by Flannery O’Connor is a short story about Mrs. Hopewell and her daughter Hulga, and the tragic consequences of their misconceptions about the world. The importance of challenging one’s common convictions and the dangers that can arise from being narrow-minded is carried by the mother’s dissatisfaction of diversity and women’s education. The devastation of both women implies a sense of desired
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many instances in Flannery O'Connor's short stories, names give away a character’s moral identity. Many of the names that Flannery O'Connor uses are ironic and provide insight on how she wants the character’s to be perceived. In the short story, Good Country People, a thirty-two year old crippled girl changed her name from Joy to Hulga because she believed it was an ugly name, eventually, Joy/Hulga will have an ugly realization about her moral character. In the short story, A Good Man Is Hard To Find
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seeing him as innocent and childlike. Through the use of irony and similes, Flannery O’Connor reveals that Manly Pointer is actually a crooked, immoral man. In “Good Country People,” Pointer pretends to love Hulga in order to gain Hulga’s trust and her artificial leg. Despite being a Bible salesman, Pointer has no regard for the moral standards set by the Bible. Mrs. Hopewell proclaims Pointer is “good country people” because of his career and attitude; however, this is only a facade. Pointer
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Good Country People: Tension in Relationships In the short story “Good Country People”, O’Conner used dialogue between Joy/Hulga and her mother, and narrative point of view, to illustrate the tension between the two protagonists and how their actions affected their relationship. In an attempt to ignore the pain and suffering of the traumatic accident, Mrs. Hopewell would treat Joy/Hulga as a child. When Joy/Hulga was only ten years old her leg, from just above the knee down, was completely blown
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West Civ: Modernity Paper 2 Throughout the readings of Lincoln’s Second Inaugural, Flannery O’Connor, “Good Country People”, and Frederick Douglass’s Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, there are several similarities and differences. The main point of this writing is to highlight the simplicity of the readings. Values of humanity, and morality are some of the key points to focus on throughout the writings and will be discussed accordingly. While there are mostly similarities, there are a
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O’Connor Reflected In Her Short Stories Flannery O’Connor is considered by many in the world of literature to be one of the greatest authors of short stories in the twentieth century. She has the ability to present life’s moral and faith bound conflicts to readers in a profound way. Her own conflicts in life play a very significant role in the way she sees the world. O’Connor’s life and her faith play a key role in her short stories. Born Mary Flannery O’Connor on March 25, 1925 in Savannah Georgia
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