Post WWII: "Good Country People" Flannery O'Connor

• Published in 1955
• Mr. and Mrs. Freeman help Mrs. Hopewell run her farm in rural Georgia
• Mrs. Hopewell's daughter, Joy - 32, lost her leg in a childhood accident.
• Joy focuses her life in education receiving a Ph.D. in Philosophy
• Her mother thinks this is non-sensible
• Joy changes her name to "Hulga"
• The ugliest name to rebel against her mother.
• Manley Pointer, a bible salesman, visits the farm
• He's invited to stay for dinner
• Mrs. Hopewell believes he is "good country people
• Pointer invites Hulga to a picnic the next evening
• she imagines seducing him
• During the date, he persuades her to go up into the barn loft where he persuades her to remove her prosthetic leg and glasses
• He the produces a hollowed-out bible
• whiskey, sex cards, and some condoms
• He tries to get her to drink, she refuses
• He leaves with her leg claiming he collects prostheses from disabled people and is an atheist.
• a stranger - deceptively polite but ultimately evil - intrudes upon a family with destructive consquences
• Divided into 4 distinct sections
• O'Connor is able to establish sbutle parrallels between the characters
• Mrs. Freeman & Manley Pointer
• Mrs. Hopewell and Hulga
• While at the same time providing details which appear to emphasize the different facets of the four individual characters.
• Part of the "A Good Man is Hard to Find" short story collection
• Hulga holds grudges against Mrs. Freeman's daughters.
• The names all play a significance in the telling of the story
• Hope well
• Free man
• Pointer
• Joy to Hulga