A Good Country Character Analysis

Good Country People is a story about some country people who are not so good. Flannery O'Connor pulls readers in and immerses them in her story with concise wording and deeply rooted background information. The story centers around four characters: Hulga, Manley Pointer, Mrs. Hopewell, and Mrs. Freeman. O’Connor establishes parallels between Hulga and her mother and also between Mrs. Freeman and Manly Pointer. Hulga and Mrs. Hopewell are two very different people, but they are similar in the sense that they both believe that the world is much simpler than it actually is. Hulga lives as if there is no meaning to life beyond what one can see on the surface, which why she remakes her entire image after she loses her leg and why she does not believe in God. She believes that there is nothing defining her life except for her deformity. Mrs. Hopewell’s world is one where everything has to operate a certain way in order to be “correct.” She says that “everybody is different” and that “nothing is perfect,” but she is unable to bring herself to accept Hulga’s disability because Hulga does not fit into a world where cliches function as truth. While their worldviews are drastically different, the fact that they see the world as black and white and expect things to be tailored to their lives make them very similar. On the other hand, Mrs. Freeman and Manly Pointer are both perceived by Mrs. Hopewell to be good, even innocent, country people, but in fact, they are both very shrewd. If Hulga and Mrs. Hopewell are blind to the ways of the world, Mrs. Freeman and Manly Pointer are their opposites. To drive this point home, O’Connor gives Mrs. Freeman some similar traits to Pointer, such as a strange fascination with Hulga’s wooden leg. At the end of the story, Pointer reveals to Hulga that he is not as simple as she believed and that he was a con artist, leaving Hulga literally stripped of everything she once was. Then, in the last few paragraphs, Mrs. Hopewell and Mrs. Freeman are talking and Mrs. Freeman says “some people can’t be that simple,” and “I know I never could.” Implying that she is not as good as Mrs. Hopewell makes her out to be.