Good Country People Character Analysis

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Good Country People Occasionally, someone may put on a deceptive front in order to attempt a fulfillment of an emotion they wish to portray to those around them. This façade may be so heavily embodied that the person begins to believe it themselves, falsely. Flannery O’Conner’s Good Country People shows an element of this through the main character, Hulga. Hulga believes that she is superior to others, or at least to those she must see on a daily basis, and wants to believe in nothing. She lacks faith in God and anything outside of the concrete world. Hulga’s name had originally been Joy, until she had it legally changed at age twenty-one. Her mother, Mrs. Hopewell, “was certain that she had thought and thought until she had hit upon the ugliest name in any language.” This decision by Joy was most likely done to spite her mother, however, Mrs. Hopewell continues to call her Joy, as though saying that might make it true. Although Hulga…show more content…
Besides her education and intelligence, she cherishes it as what makes her who she is. However, the fact that she will not allow anyone to see it or let it be displayed whatsoever shows to ultimately be her downfall. While in the loft of the barn with Manly Pointer, Hulga’s thoughts are revealed to the reader as she ponders, “she was as sensitive about the artificial leg as a peacock about his tail. No one ever touched it but her. She took care of it as someone else would his soul, in private and almost with her own eyes turned away.” This attitude along with her lack of faith leads to her unfortunate consequence, after she grants Pointer access to her wooden leg, and further allows him to remove it. Immediately following the removal of her leg, Hulga begins to feel panicked and vulnerable. She does not know how to act or function in her normal manner without it, and she is appalled at the realization that Pointer is not the “good country people” she originally had him pegged to

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