“Good Country People” features Mrs. Hopewell and her daughter, Joy, who develop senses of identity through passive judgement and self-identity development. The Freemans and Manley Porter accentuate the Hopewell’s individualities, furthering the theme’s architecture. Through the employment of setting, point of view, and symbolism, Flannery O’Connor creates a solid theme of constructing individual identity in her short story “Good Country People.”
Both the presence and absence of setting in O’Connor’s “Good Country People” is pertinent to conveying the theme. The setting is primarily affixed in two locations: Mrs. Hopewell’s kitchen and the barn loft. The kitchen contributes to the sense that the three women are trapped together in a familiar but …show more content…
The symbols of Hephaestus, Hulga’s leg, and a visionary aid contribute to a clearly constructed setup. Joy’s name change to Hulga alludes to the Greek god, Hephaestus, who is the god of fire and shares Hulga’s leg ailment. The narrator explains Hulga’s actions as a means to force herself away from her mother, but also attempt to shape her own identity: One of her major triumphs was that her mother had not been able to turn her dust into Joy, but the greater one was that she had been able to turn it herself into Hulga (O’Connor). Having been blown off in a hunting accident, Hulga’s peg-leg is symbolic of both her soul and fractured identity. In addition to Hulga’s gimp leg, she is described as having a deep-set, unpleasant demeanor: "constant outrage had obliterated every expression from her face," and that she "would stare […] with the look of someone who had achieved blindness by an act of will and means to keep it” (O’Connor). However, as Hulga’s glasses are removed, she gains a more creative, and perhaps more emotional, way of seeing the world. Therefore, her glasses are not only a visionary augmentation, but an insightful
Both the presence and absence of setting in O’Connor’s “Good Country People” is pertinent to conveying the theme. The setting is primarily affixed in two locations: Mrs. Hopewell’s kitchen and the barn loft. The kitchen contributes to the sense that the three women are trapped together in a familiar but …show more content…
The symbols of Hephaestus, Hulga’s leg, and a visionary aid contribute to a clearly constructed setup. Joy’s name change to Hulga alludes to the Greek god, Hephaestus, who is the god of fire and shares Hulga’s leg ailment. The narrator explains Hulga’s actions as a means to force herself away from her mother, but also attempt to shape her own identity: One of her major triumphs was that her mother had not been able to turn her dust into Joy, but the greater one was that she had been able to turn it herself into Hulga (O’Connor). Having been blown off in a hunting accident, Hulga’s peg-leg is symbolic of both her soul and fractured identity. In addition to Hulga’s gimp leg, she is described as having a deep-set, unpleasant demeanor: "constant outrage had obliterated every expression from her face," and that she "would stare […] with the look of someone who had achieved blindness by an act of will and means to keep it” (O’Connor). However, as Hulga’s glasses are removed, she gains a more creative, and perhaps more emotional, way of seeing the world. Therefore, her glasses are not only a visionary augmentation, but an insightful