Not
a Whiff of Magnolia:
Flannery O’Connor’s “Good Country People”
by Jennifer Ryujin
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A
fundamental tenant of New Criticism is that every “poem” is an
artifact to be considered wholly on its own, in terms of organic unity,
form, and “oneness.” This oneness is achieved through
ambiguity, paradox, and irony.
I
will be examining the short story “Good Country People” and what I
stated as ambiguity, paradox, and irony, all literary components that
strive to make the organic unity of a “poem” possible. I will then
discuss the overarching tension of the artifact and resolve the
tensions, giving it the validity to stand on its own as a “poem.” Ambiguity
The main ambiguity lies in the title of the story. Who are the good country people? We are presented with four characters: Manly Pointer, Joy/ Hulga, her mother Mrs. Hopewell, and Mrs. Freeman, the hired help. Mrs. Freeman communicates through facial expressions and terse accents to Mrs. Hopewell’s clichés, such as “nothing is perfect,” “everybody is different,” and “That’s life!” Mrs. Hopewell is unable to emotionally connect with her daughter and is horrified that she has changed her name from Joy to Hulga to spite her. Joy/Hulga is “a large blond girl who has an artificial leg.” She is thirty-two years old, an atheist, and highly educated. The pivotal character who enters the middle of the story is Manly Pointer, who is a self-described “country boy.” A good “Christian” he seems to lack all sense, and is “not even from a place, just near a place.” We
are to assume from O’Connor’s description of Mrs. Hopewell and her
daughter Joy/Hulga that they do not fall into the same category as
self-professed good country people in the story. Mrs. Hopewell contrasts
herself against good country people, saying, “Good country people are
the salt of the earth… it takes all kinds to make the world go
‘round. That’s life!” Joy/Hulga contrasts herself by simply
removing herself from all social interaction. Mrs.
Hopewell is being juxtaposed against Mrs. Freeman, as is Joy/Hulga
against Manly Pointer, the Bible salesmen. This juxtaposition is based
on the seeming intellect of the characters. The characterization of good
country people appears to be lineal until the story’s end when we are
left with a legless Joy/Hulga who has been duped by the “country
boy” who has given a false name and taken her glasses, leg, and
virginity. We are also left with Mrs. Freeman’s chilling last line
“some can’t be that simple, I know I never could,” which
intensifies the ambivalent nature of the story. The seemingly
“simple” people of the story are those with wisdom and cunning,
leaving the superior characters in ruin. Paradox
The ultimate paradox in this story seems to be the characters of Manly Pointer and Joy/Hulga. They are literary foils of one another in the intellectual sense. Joy/Hulga has a PhD in Philosophy and considers all situations in a scientific, philosophical light. She has little life experience and because of her heart condition and gender is unable to escape the hills she was born in and the good country people she equates to being intellectually inferior. However, paradoxically, in the middle of the story it is commented that Joy/Hulga was “brilliant but she didn’t have a grain of sense.” Manly
Pointer is a young Bible Salesmen with a contrived heart condition. “I
didn’t want to go to college. I want to devote my life to the
Christian service.” Mrs. Hopewell proclaims him “good country
people, you know, just the salt of the earth.” In
a passage demonstrating the characters intellects, Manly Pointer asks
Joy/Hulga if “she has ever eaten a chicken that was two days old.”
She ponders this from all philosophical angles and answers yes, to which
he triumphantly says, “It must have been mighty small!” The paradox
is evident in Manly Pointer’s answer. Manly Pointer asks a simple
question to which there is a simple, unexpected answer. Joy/Hulga
automatically assumes that there is a deeper meaning buried deep in his
question. “he might have just put this question up for consideration
at the meeting of a philosophical association.” Knowing this we can
assume that while it is not consistent character wise, Manly Pointer is
operating on a level of heightened intellect.
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Irony The
greatest irony in the story is the religious sentiments of the two
characters. Joy/Hulga, an Atheist who finds little redeeming quality in
good country people and everyone else for that matter, is supremely
scientific and analytic. “I don’t have illusions.”
It is from this stance that she protects herself from the world.
Knowing this, it is ironic that O’Connor references Nicolas
Malebranche, a 17th century theologian when Joy/Hulga asks
her mother if she has “ever looked inside and seen what you are
not?” Joy/Hulga answers, “Malebranche was right: we are not our own
light!” The irony lies in two aspects: 1. What Malebranche referred to
as “light” is the argument that we see external objects by the means
of ideas in God, and 2.That Joy/Hulga believes she is her own light,
individual and separate from all ideology and superstructure. Manly Pointer, who insists on bringing his suitcase full of Bibles up to the second story loft of a barn, is holding steady to his “reverent” nature as he asks Joy/Hulga to show him “where her wooden leg joins on.” This evokes not shock, but protectiveness in Joy/Hulga. “As a child she had sometimes been subject to feelings of shame, but education had removed the last traces of that as a good surgeon scrapes for cancer; she would no more have felt it over what he was asking than she would have believed in his bible.” Just as education has scraped away her feelings of shame, it has also removed ideological sentiment. It can be stated then that Joy/Hulga’s downfall lie in the irony that though she claims she has no illusions, “I’m one of those people who see through to nothing.” Claiming she can see through to nothing translates into her not being able to see through to anything. And the irony is painful as Manly Pointer, using his false name says, “And I’ll tell you another thing, Hulga, you ain’t so smart. I been believing in nothing since I was born,” as he steals away with her glasses and her wooden leg. Conclusion The
overarching tension of this story seems to exist in the frailty of human
character and our ways of generalizing and categorizing people to
elevate ourselves. This indeed is “resolved” in the end of the story
by way of binary role reversal, to borrow a deconstructive term, of
characterization. Joy/Hulga is elevated in situation (she is trapped in
the loft) but not in accordance with an intellectual or spiritual
stature. Manley Pointer has outwitted Joy/Hulga out of her coveted
wooden leg and is making his way through the lower depths of the woods.
The story ends with Mrs. Hopewell, the seemingly brighter one of the
two, telling Mrs. Freeman “I guess the world would all be better off
if we were all that simple.” To which Mrs. Freeman says, “Some
can’t be that simple. I know I never could be.” So we are left to
ask, who are the real good country people? Works
Cited Nicolas
Malebranche. 3 Nov.
2004. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. O’Connor,
Flannery. “Good Country People.” 6 Oct. 2004 Ruben,
Charles and Leslie Ruben. “Flannery O’Connor’s Religious Vision of
Regime Change.” EBSCOhost.
Perspectives on Political Science, 10457097, Fall2002, Vol.31,Issue4 Sparrow,
Stephen. “Stamping Out Joy: The Fallacy of Certainty in ‘Good
Country People.’” Walker,
Alice. “A South Without Myths.” Homepage. 30 Oct. 2004
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