Flaws In Flannery O Connor's Good Country People

Not only did Hulga’s wooden leg have a symbolic meaning in the story “Good Country People,” but also the imagery of her spectacles has a symbolic meaning as well. Her glasses symbolically represent the loss of vision and gaining of insight. At the beginning of the story, Hulga is wearing these glasses, which many of us tend to associate with being smart. However she does not gain insight until Manley removes her glasses. It is stated in “Good Country People”, “When her glasses got in his way, he took them off of her and slipped them into his pocket” (O’Conner 1350). At first Hulga does not notice Manley taking off her glasses; however she still carries on trying to seduce Manley. This signals her acceptance to her new vision, and it also demonstrates

Flannery O’Connor is a renowned Southern author, noted for her gothic works and heavily Catholic themes. She focuses predominantly on racial tensions, morality, and divine grace. The religious and moral themes of her short story, A Good Man is Hard to Find, converge on the character of the grandmother. Despite the self-proclamations of fulfilling what it means to be a Southern lady, Grandmother holds a superficial grasp of her religion. Throughout the story, the Grandmother never truly changed, only her ostensible actions did. Her final act towards the Misfit was not out of charity, but in attempt to save herself.

In Good Country People by Flannery O’Connor, Manley Pointer a young unassuming Bible salesman successfully dupes Hulga Hopewell an unattractive yet prideful atheist with a PhD into giving him her false leg. Pointer is a man who exploits the weakness of other in order to achieve his goals. He often does this by sympathizing with other people’s conditions in life or allowing them to believe they have the upper hand.

Priestly depicts gender stereotypes to emphasise gender in a capitalistic, misogynistic and patriarchal society, in his play 'An Inspector Calls'. Priestly portrays women as emotional, commodified, materialistic and irresponsible to highlight the way that a misogynistic capitalist society operates. In a similar manner, Priestly presents men as arrogant, ambitious, dominant, and strong. By doing this Priestly aims to critique capitalism and the underlying implications and undercurrent of problems which capitalism brings to provoke a reaction in the audience to promote socialism.

Throughout much of O’Connor’s works, there is this idea that a character needs redemption, as Dorothy Walters suggests in her book, Flannery O’Connor. Walters also states when these characters are enlightened, it is often “through catastrophe.” In O’Connor’s “Good Country People,” this salvation through violence occurs for Joy. Through the evaluation of Joy’s downfalls in character and her misinterpretation of Manley Pointer, Joy has a horrific experience that will forever change her perspective and reform her overconfidence.

This story is about a grandmother who does all the wrong things and ends up getting herself and her family killed. In A Good Man is Hard to Find, we go through this adventure with a family that never truly makes their destination. The lies begin to build and the loose term of a good man gets thrown around one too many times. Does dressing like a lady and acting proper like a lady truly save your life? The grandmother’s moral code and values are skewed and largely self-concerning. Being a good man to society and a good man to someone can have different meanings, as they do in this story. In Flannery O’Connor’s story we explore the irony of the grandmother and use of the word good and the meaning behind it.

“Inside each of us there is the seed of both good and evil. It’s a constant struggle as to which one will win. And on cannot exist without the other”. (Eric Burdon) In Miller’s play The Crucible Abigail and Elizabeth both had to choose between good and evil. In the play Abby tries to do witchcraft to kill John Proctor's wife Elizabeth. She almost gets caught doing it so she accuses many people of bewitching her and got many people hanged. She accuses Elizabeth of bewitching her to kill her. The court will not kill her because she is pregnant but John Procter ends up being hanged because he was accused. In the play Elizabeth the example of good. She is kind, loving, and selfless. Abigail is the example of evil. She is mean, a killer, and a liar.

“...The hunting accident...the leg had been literally blasted off” (O’Connor 484), this sentence mentioned by the author symbolizes Hulga’s personality, because when something very valuable is taken away from someone and they are aware of it, but are not able to react to it, it could change a person drastically. Hulga could have been a totally different women if she had her leg, that’s why the author decided to give her a wooden leg. In the story the author mentions how Hulga does not care about her appearance at all. When she goes on a date with Manley Pointer she wears a dirty white shirt, applies Vapex as perfume, and never smiles. “...She didn’t like dogs or cats or birds or flowers or nature or nice young men” (O’Connor 485), Hulga’s personality might be like this because of her wooden leg. She might have given up on herself because she is not able to do everything she will like. For example, a wooden leg is ugly, uncomfortable, and prevents you from doing certain things. Therefore, the leg is preventing Hulga from being who she really wants to be, that is why she pushes away everything that will make her happy and what define who she really is. The author does not directly mention this in the story, but by the way Hulga acts the reader can conclude that the wooden leg symbolizes her new

In Good Country People by Flannery O’Connor, Joy (later renamed Hulga) becomes blinded by her pride due to a bible salesman that turns out to be less than adequately stereotyped. Duped into succumbing to his tricks, the main character Joy allows her pride to keep her from seeing the truth until it’s too late. Joy’s pride contributes to her downfall because she hides behind a wall of intelligence to accommodate for her wooden leg. Her wall of intelligence makes her believe that she is smarter than Manly Pointer, this opens her up to the chance of being blindsided. Another contribution is the fact that she does not observe her surroundings because of her overconfidence of abilities, this allows Manly to play to her weaknesses and be the person he knows she needs. Her

There is a strong correlation between violence and masculinity. In the play, Macbeth by Shakespeare, Macbeth and Lady Macbeth constantly battle the challenges of manhood. This can be supported by Lady Macbeth and her “unsex me speech” (Act 1.5.47-61).

In the stories “Good Country People”, “ The Life You Save May Be Your Own”, and “The Displaced Person” Flannery O’Connor had believed that pride was the root to all evil, and those who had to much would have their pride lead to their utter demise due to temptation. A quote that really ties into what O’Connor had been thinking was one by St. Cyril or Jerusalem. She had written that “ The dragon is by the side of the road, Watching those who pass. Beware least he devour you. We go to the father of souls, but it is necessary to pass by the dragon”. This entailed that one needed to leave their pride at the door and recognize reality and limitations on ones self and not be overtaken by the temptations in life. If one hadn't left their pride at the curb, they were going to experience a rude awakening in Mrs. O’Conner’s short stories.

Flannery O’Connor was a Southern author from America who frequently wrote in a Southern Gothic style and depended vigorously on local settings and bizarre characters. Her works likewise mirrored her Roman Catholic faith and regularly examined questions of morality and ethics. She created violence in the end of both “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” and “Everything that Rises Must Converge” to put the stories to the end. She asserted that she has found that violence is strangely capable of returning her characters to reality and preparing them to accept their moment of grace, and also violence is the extreme situation that best reveals who

genuinely mind boggling story displayed as a basic story about great nation individuals. It begins with two ladies, the two moms, examining their youngsters. Mrs. Freeman works for Mrs. Hopewell and has two little girls, one wedded with a child in transit and one simply doing her own particular thing. Mrs. Hopewell has one little girl, Joy, who renamed herself Hulga to make herself additionally unappealing. She is a lady with a terrible heart, a wooden leg, and has never been enamored. Mrs. Hopewell and Mrs. Freeman have an inconspicuous competition about their accomplishment in bringing up their girls to be great, nation individuals. The day preceding, a book of scriptures sales representative by the name of Manley Pointer had come around

The exposition, conflict, climax and resolution are brought into the play by the sharing of conversation by the characters, by flash backs primarily with her Father and young Violet, and through songs such as “Down the Mountain,” “All to Pieces,” and “Hard to Say Goodbye.”

One of the most prevalent themes in Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights and Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein is that of obsession.