Good Country People Essay -- essays papers

Good Country People â€Å"Woman, Do You Ever Look Inside?† There are many themes within Flannery O’Connor’s short story â€Å"Good Country People†. Religion is definitely one of the more prominent themes that the story holds. Like most of O’Connor’s works, it plays a big part in the actions or characteristics of the main characters. This is all on the surface however. The more important and less accentuated theme is the various facades the characters create for themselves. These facades prevent them from facing their true â€Å"grotesque† selves. These facades also hide their weaknesses that they have no wish to face ort just can’t understand. People must be comfortable with every aspect of themselves, because certain people, who in this story are represented by Manley Pointer’s character, can easily exploit their weaknesses. He’s â€Å"good country people† and â€Å"the salt of the earth† as Mrs. Hopewell refers to Manley Pointer who really is a demon that they mu st face. A demon to remind them of their weaknesses. Beginning with Mrs. Hopewell, the title of the story comes from what she likes to call the poorer and less fortunate people that live off the land and work their whole lives just to hang on to some scrap of a life. This is how she views these people. She believes that they are good country people not a bad seed among them, that they are all eager to help out and bow in humility to the upper class. The gullible nature of Mrs. Hopewell betrays her true vision of a situation. She is one of those people who are all goody-goody to people who they view as less fortunate. She’s a person that commends or speaks for the people she knows nothing about. Altogether this is her true weakness that is taken advantage of by Manley Pointer. One of ... ...of a minor character in the story but she is referred to as having two emotions, â€Å"forward and reverse†. This is important because when a person is forced to go in reverse they must face something or learn something they don’t want to know about themselves. This seems to be what happens during the course of the story for Joy-Hulga. Although all the characters in the story are stuck in reverse, the only character that is forced to realize her weakness, which destroys the faà §ade that she created is Joy-Hulga. It seems that in this story as in life the most high and mighty suffers the greatest fall. Joy-Hulga was the one who perceived herself to be the high and mighty of the characters. This attitude is displayed with many of her comment to Mrs. Hopewell. Perhaps when Joy-Hulga remarks to Mrs. Hopewell, â€Å"Woman, do you ever look inside?† she should’ve taken her own advice.