Good Country People by Flannery O'Connor - Analysis
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
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
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