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May 01, 2006
Deception and Flannery O’Connor
As in many of O’Connor’s works, “Good Country People” is a story in which people, or more specifically one character, is not what he seems. Throughout the course of the story we see Manley Pointer as a good, innocent man, as close to perfect as we’ve yet seen in any of Flannery’s stories. I mean come on, the guys a bible salesman, how bad can he really be? Pointer’s persona carries on far into the story, and he even manages to win over the heart of the cold, angry individual that is Hulga.
Right up until the end it seems to the reader that Hulga is going to be the one to seduce and take advantage of Manley, until right at the very last moment the tables turn, and the reader realizes that Manley is rather depraved and only wants Hulga for her wooden leg. The story culminates when he steals this leg and leaves her stranded in the loft of a barn, immediately transferring Hulga from being the aggressor to being the victim.
It seems to me that perhaps this sudden change is what O’Connor was going for, and that through deception she wants us to realize that Good can masquerade as Evil just as easily as Evil can imitate Good.
Posted by PaulCrossman at May 1, 2006 12:08 AM