Joy In Good Country People

Joy is the daughter of Mrs. Hopewell in “Good Country People”. Joy is a thirty-two year old who still lives with her mother on the farm. She has blonde hair and an artificial leg. Joy is also very highly educated. When Joy was ten she was in a terrible hunting accident that shot off her leg. She lives with her mother because she has a weak heart and cannot work. Joy is very rude to everyone around her and especially to her mother. Joy soon understands that she should have treated others the way she wanted to be treated.
In the beginning Joy is down-right rude to everyone she comes in contact too. She does everything she can to be disrespectful and disobey to her mother.
Her name was really Joy but as soon as she was twenty-one and away from home, she had had it legally changed. Mrs. Hopewell was certain that she had thought and thought until she had hit upon the ugliest name in any language. Then she has gone and had the beautiful name, Joy, changed without telling her mother until after she had done it. Her legal name was Hulga (447).
This situation where she changes her name that her mother gave her at birth, it shows that Hulga does not care about anyone but …show more content…
Hopewell but she was also rude to Mrs. Freeman. The only reason she would talk to Mrs. Freeman was because Mrs. Freeman would call her Hulga. She also uses Mrs. Freeman. “Hulga learned to tolerate Mrs. Freeman who saved her from taking walks with her mother” (447). The word that really sticks out here to me is tolerate. Why does she have to learn to tolerate Mrs. Freeman, Mrs. Freeman is not even related to her. What has Mrs. Freeman done to her? When reading this you learn Hulga is very self-centered and she will step over anyone to get her way. The only reason she talks to Mrs. Freeman is because she is using her. Also it shows how much she hates being around her mother. She not only hates talking to her mother, but she even hates being in the same presence as her