Notes on Flannery O'Connor & "Good Country People"

·       Identify the multiple examples of verbal irony and the use of each in the story

·       Identify the multiple examples of situational irony and the use of each in the story

·       What similarities exist between Joy-Hulga and Mrs. Hopewell?

·       What similarities exist between Manley Pointer and Mrs. Freeman?

·       Which characters serve as character foils?

·       This story is both secular and non-secular.

o     Discuss the story as a religious teaching: in order to receive God’s grace, one must first realize the need and one’s Inability to create it for one’s self

o     Discuss the story as a typical story of initiation, similar to “Young Goodman Brown”

·       What does the story suggest about intellectuals (or anyone) and the concept of control?

 From R. Neil Scott’s Flannery O’Connor: An Annotated Reference Guide to Criticism

Although the body of fiction she published during her lifetime is small . . . O’Connor’s reputation is firmly established. . . .

While more than a few Southern writers have focused upon religious themes, none has done so in quite the manner as O’Connor. Her interest in the effect of God’s grace upon the complacent Christian or reluctant convert, and her pursuit of this theme deep into the hearts and mnds of her readers, has one very specific goal: to turn her reader toward Christ for guidance and redemption

In reference to her own methods in writing fiction O’Conner once remarked, “for the hard of hearing you shout, and for the almost –blind you draw large and startling figures.” O’Connor used cutting satire and grotesque imagery to support acts of violence in her work. That use, though intentional, is by no means gratuitous. Instead, she uses it to shock readers into the realization that their own intellectual abilities are far too limited to provide a clear understanding of the nature of the universe and to urge them to carefully consider Christ’s offer of redemption.

Althought there are scores of differeing perspectives as to why O’Connor’s art is so important to American literary culture, to this author, her genius appears to lie in how she uses straightforward, simple prose to draw her readers into the iner world of her characters. Once there, she hopes they will recognize their own flawed character and look to Christ for redemption and deliverance.

Additional Notes on Flannery O'Connor:

In an address delivered before a Southern Writers Conference, O'Connor commented on the wooden leg: "We're presented with the fact that the Ph.D. is spiritually as well as physically crippled . . . and we perceive that there is a wooden part of her soul that corresponds to her wooden leg." Since this is the case, it is not surprising that Pointer's comment that it is her leg which "makes her different" produces the total collapse of Hulga's plan.

O'Connor's account of Hulga's reaction is worth examining in detail since it stresses the fact that Hulga's decision to surrender the leg is essentially an intellectual one:

She sat staring at him. There was nothing about her face or her round freezing-blue eyes to indicate that this had moved her; but she felt as if her heart had stopped and left her mind to pump her blood. She decided that for the first time in her life she was face to face with real innocence. This boy, with an instinct that came from beyond wisdom, had touched the truth about her. When after a minute, she said in a hoarse high voice, "All right," it was like surrendering to him completely. It was like losing her own life and finding it again, miraculously in his.

O'Connor's selection of a well-known biblical parallel ("He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for my sake will find it," Matthew 10:39) clearly depicts Hulga's rational surrender to Pointer and firmly underlines the significance of her rational decision within the context of the story. . . .

Hulga's epiphany, or moment of grace, occurs as a result of Pointer's betrayal of her faith in him and his destruction of her intellectual pretensions. Prior to his betrayal of her, Hulga considered herself to be the intellectual superior of all those around her. She relied upon the wisdom of this world to guide her, contrary to the biblical warning to "See to it that no one deceives you by philosophy and vain deceit, according to human traditions, according to the elements of the world and not according to Christ" (Colossians 2:8).

However, in order for Hulga to progress beyond her present state, it is necessary for her to realize that "God turned to foolishness the 'wisdom' of this world" (I Corinthians 1:20). From Hulga's point of view, the surrender of her leg was an intellectual decision; consequently, the destruction of her faith in the power of her own intellect can come only through betrayal by the one whom she rationally decided to believe in, to have faith in. . . .

it is a totally chastened Hulga who turns "her churning face toward the opening" and watches Pointer disappear, a "blue figure struggling successfully over the green speckled lake." The color imagery associated with Pointer as he leaves (blue, with heaven and heavenly love; green, with charity and regeneration of the soul), coupled with the image of walking on the water, would appear to indicate that O'Connor wishes the reader to see Pointer as an instrument of God's grace for Hulga. Although Pointer may seem an unlikely candidate for the role of grace-bringer, O'Connor, in commenting on the action of grace in her stories, has noted that "frequently it is an action in which the devil has been the unwilling instrument of grace."