Good Country People Analysis

Harvey Hill, one of the men Glynese dates, drives a 1955 Mercury and, since O'Connor wrote the story over four days in February of 1955, we're assuming the story is set in this same year. We don't...

The third-person narrator of "Good Country People" sees into the minds of Mrs. Hopewell and Hulga, but it presents Mrs. Freeman and Manley—the other two main characters—mostly through Mrs. Hope...

"Good Country People" doesn't quite rise to the level of a horror story, but there are many gothic elements. Gothic tales really bring the creep factor, sometimes featuring characters imprisoned in...

We get the feeling throughout that O'Connor thinks her characters could be much better people than they are, especially Hulga and Mrs. Hopewell. Yet she puts forth this attitude in a playful way th...

O'Connor is really at the height of her stylistic powers in "Good Country People." She begins the story with an in-depth comparison of Mrs. Freeman's face to a truck, followed by an an eight-line s...

The title phrase is repeated about half a dozen times in the story, and the idea of "good country people" drives much of the action. As we discuss in the "Tone" section, O'Connor doesn't seem to t...

In the second-to-last paragraph, Mrs. Hopewell sees Manley in the distance and assumes he's been selling Bibles to black people who live in woods nearby. This kind of completes the persistent idea...

Here's the thing about "Good Country People": It's totally readable. It's short, and while some of the language is a little regional or old-timey, it never gets too complicated. That said, this sto...

Mrs. Freeman's Facial ExpressionsMrs. Freeman and her three facial expressions are our introduction to the world of "Good Country People." Not your typical initial situation, yet this is still a st...

Anticipation Stage and Fall into the Other WorldIn this stage, Booker's heroine is either bored, naïve, or in some other state which leaves her "open to a shattering, new experience." That sounds...

We meet Mrs. Freeman and her three facial expressions, Mrs. Hopewell and her platitudes, Hulga and her Ph.D, and Manley Pointer and his Bibles. Hulga forgets to bring food to the picnic, but Manley...

Bono thanked O'Connor when accepting a 1987 Grammy for U2's The Joshua Tree. (Source)Working class hero Bruce Springsteen has been influenced by O'Connor's work. (Source)

Hulga imagines trying to seduce Manley, and his box of condoms implies that he wants to have sex with Hulga. They kiss several times, but when Manley refuses to give Hulga back her leg, the spell o...

The Bible (21, 29-36, 50, 110, 134, 141)Martin Heidegger (20)Malebranche (18)