Review of "Good Country People" by Flannery O'Connor

“Good Country People” is actually about a liar who pretends to be a “good country” person. The characters include Joy, who has changed her name to Hulga, has a fake leg, and a PhD; Mrs. Hopewell, Joy’s mother; Mrs. Freeman, Mrs. Hopewell’s farm keeper’s wife; and Manly Pointer, a fake Bible salesman. Even though the story begins with Mrs. Freeman and Mrs. Hopewell going through their morning gossip routine, the story is actually based on Joy. I believe the author uses Mrs. Hopewell to portray Joy’s character to the reader. Mrs. Hopewell appears to be a well-to-do woman who is very proper and likes to gossip. Joy is the complete opposite. She is a rough woman with an ugly personality. It seems like her goal in life is to annoy her mother and everyone around her who isn’t educated to the same level as she is. Joy also has a heart problem which seems to be her common bond the one time she lets her guard down and shouldn’t have.



When Manly Pointer, the sweet, young Bible salesman comes to Mrs. Hopewell’s house, she is polite and tries to get him to leave, nicely. Her efforts do not work so she gets Joy to run him off. Mr. Pointer tells her that he has a heart problem, which seems to be exactly the same as Joy’s. There is an instant connection between them, not the typical love story romance, but Joy is actually as decent as she can be. She even invites him to stay for dinner and agrees to walk with him the next day. Mr. Pointer asks Joy several times where her leg is connected at. She seems to take this as a vulgar question and gets fairly ill with him. It was really amusing that he charmed her so much that she finally showed her leg to him, even how to take it off. I wish I could have seen Joy’s expression when Mr. Pointer confesses to being a crook. In a way I was glad he took her leg and left her stranded. There’s a golden rule that she didn’t follow, “Do unto others as you would want done unto you” which came back to bite her. I wonder how she got home. Did she have to wait in the barn until someone found her? Was she skilled enough to make it home on her own? Also, what does Many Pointer do with all these random fake parts? That’s pretty twisted.