Flannery O'Connor's story Good Country People

Flannery O'Connor's short story "Good Country People" focuses on the expectations of Hulga "Joy" Hopewell and the irony of her encounter with a traveling Bible salesman. Hulga sees herself as a hard-nosed cynic in a world of fools, a cynic with a PhD in philosophy and a wooden leg, and she believes she has spotted a world-class fool in the person of the Bible salesman, who calls himself Manley Pointer. Hulga is in for a rude awakening because her certainty about her own brilliance and about the stupidity of others is about to lead her into a trap which reveals far more truth about herself than she is likely to have suspected previously.

The Hulga-Bible salesman encounter is the heart of the story, but Hulga's mother also plays an important role in the advance of the irony of the story because the mother sees far more truth than Hulga can possibly imagine. Of her daughter, Mrs. Hopewell thinks, "She was brilliant but she didn't have a grain of sense" (646).

Hulga is 32 years old, has a PhD in philosophy, lives with her mother, has no apparent job or desire to get one or likelihood of ever having one, had her leg shot off in a hunting accident 22 years ago, wears a wooden leg, hates the world and everything in it, especially herself, and is in need of the redemptive power of love, or sex, or both. She sees in the Bible salesman the opportunity to grab that sex and/or love while she can.

Hulga and the boy talk. She says she is 17. They make a"date" for the next day for a pi

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