Good Country People

Good Country People

Some can't be that simple," she said. "I know I never could." This is how the story ends and somehow, it seems to cover the entire short story. What we see is not always what we get and the way that people do present themselves is seldom what we will also find deep in their souls.

The short story presents a few casual characters, rather dull country people who live in an undetermined cluster in the countryside. The author presents Mrs. Hopewell and her daughter Joy, who had turned her name to Hulga, as well as the Freemans, Mrs. Freeman and her two daughters, Glynese and Carramae.

Our attention is drawn to Joy-Hulga, who from the beginning draws our whole attention. She seems to be an excellent representative of what Baudelaire has defined as the "esthetics of the ugly." She had a hunting accident when she was ten and has ever since had a wooden leg from knee downwards. She is not only content with her physical ugliness, but seems to cultivate it as a good of her own, as a trademark if you like, in favor of intellectual richness. She is very cultivated, went to college and has taken her PhD in philosophy. She is a true intellectual, but an intellectual who cannot express herself in the society, perhaps because of her physical handicap, perhaps because of the fact that she has a heart disease and is bound to die young. The author ironically points out towards the fact that she is wasting all her knowledge in a place where nothing seems to happen. Because indeed, this is a place that seems out of time: we get this impression from the very beginning of the story, as the authors only makes quick notes of anything past (she mentions the former tenants and the hunting accident, but just barely).

The author points out several clues as to how Hulga cultivates this esthetics of the ugly. She had her name changed from Joy, which certainly has happy connotations, to Hulga, a name that has a strange sound effect on the reader. She wears a six-year-old skirt and dirty T-shirts. She never wears perfume. She seems to be fed up with life and, in some sense, we get the impression that she is only awaiting for her end to come.

It seems strange that she does not find any relief in religion. We could expect that as a sort of salvation in itself, a hope for an after life better than the life she is actually living. But the author has clear intentions of pointing out that Hulga is marooned in this life and has no chance of another life. Her philosophical studies have turned her into an atheist. I would consider that the author wants to cut any bridges to hope that she may have and completely isolate her in her world of ugliness.

Enter Manley Pointer, the young man who sells bibles. In the place out of time where nothing seems to happen, the author sends an element that can destabilize. We have this impression from the very beginning we read about the Bible salesman. We have an impression that there is something not right about him. Perhaps because of his accent, that seems fake, perhaps because of some of the things he says, but mostly because we find Hulga taking a keen interest in him. This is most unexpected because of a few reasons. First, the young man seems to be uneducated and we would expect Hulga to approach people with common intellectual affinities as herself. Secondly, Manley seems to be a fervent Catholic, which would rival Hulga's atheism. And thirdly, we would no expect her to have any Earthly passions. However, he proclaims to have a heart condition that will make him die young and in this, Hulga finally finds someone who resembles her. We must insist a little on this point, so as to understand why she begins to trust the perfect stranger that Manley actually was. I believe in the fact that Hulga struggles to find somebody she can connect to. She could have several options here: she could find somebody with the same intellectual interests as herself (which is probably hard to suppose, seeing the little town that she lived in) or she could find somebody with the same physical condition as herself. As this happens, Hulga suddenly discovers that she is no longer alone, that she is no longer something to be scorned in its ugliness, but that there are more like her out there, physically whimpered and handicapped.

Manley ends up seducing her and gains her trust. As a proof of her trust, she shows him where her wooden leg joins and agrees to take it of for him. This is where Manley suffers a sudden transformation and appears in all his fakeness. He betrays her trust, shows his real character and steals her wooden. This is all symbolical of course. The only person in the world that she came close to proves to be a different character and hurts her in her most sensitive point: her physical handicap.