Good Country People Symbolism Analysis
Good Country People written by Flannery O’ Conner has symbolism and metaphors that are used and that reinforce the major ideas of the story. O’Conner uses Mrs. Hopewell’s daughter Joy and her name change as a symbolism. A few others that add to the main idea is Joy’s wooden leg, her last name Hopewell, the Freeman’s, Manly Pointer, his briefcase, the hollow bible, and even the gate to the Hopewell’s house is symbolic to the story. Metaphors that take place are Mrs. Hopewell’s saying Good country people are the salt of the earth and many other sayings that Mrs. Hopewell believes to be true about life.
Joy changing her name is symbolic to Good County People, she finds herself superior to those who are less fortunate than her or what her mother calls good country people. Joy changing her name to Hulga and having her leg be a false wooden leg symbolizes her fractured identity and vulnerability. Joy has the
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His briefcase symbolizes identity as well, Manly carries the briefcase to display his act of being a good county person when in reality he is not and his hollow bible is even a symbolism of emptiness and deceit which is the life that he lives by. One of Mr. Hopewells sayings “good country people are the salt of the earth” is a metaphor that adds to the meaning of the short story. Mrs. Hopewell refuses to see the world as it truly is filled with good and evil instead she chooses to the simpler areas in life. She has other metaphors she says that expresses her simplistic view of life such as “Nothing is perfect”, and “Everybody is different”, and “That is life. These symbolisms and metaphors that are placed in the story help to add to the point of the story that life does not always have good country people only people who refuse to see the world how it truly
Irony In Mrs. Hulga's Good Country People
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Good Country People Symbolism
923 Words | 4 PagesSt. Cyril of Jerusalem made the analogy that life is like a road that must be traveled with a dragon on the side, waiting to devour any who stray off the road. Within the analogy, the dragon represents the personal temptations everyone has struggled to overcome in order to reach God, who waits at the end of the road. Although everyone struggles with their own personal temptations, most can be put into one of the seven deadly sins: pride, greed, anger, sloth, envy, lust, and gluttony. Flannery O’Connor focused on these in her short stories by creating characters that embodied certain sins. In some of her most known stories, such as “Good Country People,” “The Life You Save May be Your Own,’’ and “The Displaced Person,” she focused on pride, greed, and anger, respectively.
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Symbolism In Good Country People
868 Words | 4 Pages“She had a vision of the name working like the ugly sweating Vulcan…” (O’Connor 484), Vulcan is the Roman god of fire and also a blacksmith, furthermore, someone similar to Vulcan is Hephaestus, the Greek god of fire and blacksmith as well. This is related to Hulga’s name change because Joy did not represent her, therefore, she decided to change it to Hulga. That is why she mentions Vulcan when she is having a conversation with her mother. Hulga can relate to him because, Hephaestus had a limp, he is ugly, and physically undesirable. Hulga fits all of those categories in a way, she had a limp because she did not have a leg, she was not physically ugly, but the way she thought of herself was, and she was undesirable because she did not take care of herself properly.
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1117 Words | 5 PagesBecause the characters in this story are described in more detail than the characters in “Good Country People” it is reasonable to believe that there is also more physiognomy that can be used to further
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