Good Country People by Flannery O'Connor - Analysis

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Themes and Characterization

·       Mrs. Hopewell's sayings

·       Acceptance of imperfection
“Nothing is perfect.  This was one of Mrs. Hopewell’s favorite sayings.  Another was:  that is life!”

·       Relative truth/ acceptance and understanding
“And still another, the most important, was:  well, other people have their opinions too”

·       Hulga's excessive pessimism vs. her mother's feigned optimism

·       Mrs. Hopewell's secret criticism of Hulga
“There was nothing wrong with her face that a pleasant expression wouldn’t help.  Mrs. Hopewell said that people who looked on the bright side of things would be beautiful even if they were not.”

·       Educated women and scorn for them

·       Mrs. Hopewell's hypocrisy- feigns openmindedness but is harsh with her daughter
‘“Why!” she cried, “good country people are the salt of the earth!  Besides, we all have different ways of doing, it takes all kinds to make the world go ‘round.  That’s life!’

·       Country people

·       Mrs. Hopewell's need to please everybody

·       Mrs. Freeman's inane contributions to conversation

·       Hulga's educated atheism vs. Manley's hillbilly theism

·       Religion

·       Seduction

·       Feeling vs. thinking


Style and Devices

·       Wit
“Since she was the type who had to be into everything, then, Mrs. Hopewell had decided, she would not only let her be into everything, she would see to it that she was into everything – she would give her the responsibility of everything, she would put her in charge.  Mrs. Hopewell had no bad qualities of her own but she was able to use other people’s in such a constructive way that she had kept them four years.”

·       Facial expressions
“and the large hulking Joy, whose constant outrage had obliterated every expression from her face, would stare just a little to the side of her, her eyes icy blue, with the look of someone who had achieved blindness by an act of will and means to keep it.”
also
“Besides the neutral expression that she wore when she was alone, Mrs. Freeman had two others, forward and reverse, that she used for all her human dealings”

·       Willful ignorance
“and the large hulking Joy, whose constant outrage had obliterated every expression from her face, would stare just a little to the side of her, her eyes icy blue, with the look of someone who had achieved blindness by an act of will and means to keep it.”

·       Perverse characterization
“Something about her seemed to fascinate Mrs. Freeman and then one day Hulga realized that it was the artificial leg.  Mrs. Freeman had a special fondness for the details of secret infections, hidden deformities, assaults upon children.  Of diseases, she preferred the lingering or incurable.”

·       Mrs. Freeman's different, country dialect
‘“She thrown up four times after supper,” she said, “and was up twict in the night after three o’clock.  Yesterday she didn’t do nothing but ramble in the bureau drawer.  All she did.  Stand up there and see what she could run up on.”’



·       Conversations on two levels- Mrs. Freeman and Mrs. Hopewell, and Hulga and Manley

·       Maintenance of control- emotional and intellectual
“She smiled, looking dreamily out on the shifty landscape.  She had seduced him without even making up her mind to try.  “How?” she asked, feeling that he should be delayed a little.”
Also
“The kiss, which had more pressure than feeling behind it, produced that extra surge of adrenalin in the girl that enables one to carry a packed trunk out of a burning house, but in her, the power went at once to the brain.  Even before he released her, her mind, clear and detached and ironic anyway, was regarding him from a great distance, with amusement but with pity.  She had never been kissed before and she was pleased to discover that it was an unexceptional experience and all a matter of the mind’s control.  Some people might enjoy drain water if they were told it was vodka.”


People and Places

·       Mrs. Freeman
·       Mrs. Hopewell (very optimistic names)
·       Joy/Hulga Hopewell
·       Glynese Freeman
·       Carramae Freeman
·       Manley Pointer

Flannery O'Connor


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