“Good Country People” (1955)
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“Good Country People” 69 and the countryside. Instead, she seems intent on SYNOPSIS doing her duty, however, reluctantly, for her father. Every day Mrs. Hopewell lights the heater in her She tells him to let everyone in the city mind his room and her daughter Joy’s, then fixes breakfast. or her own business and to leave people alone. She Joy gets up and goes to the bathroom, and while she tries to get him to take walks and stay busy, even if is there, Mrs. Freeman comes to the back door. She it is simply going downstairs to get a pattern from and Mrs. Hopewell talk in low voices while Joy is in her neighbor. Though she tries to talk with him, the bathroom. Mrs. Freeman has two daughters, one which is more than his son-in-law or his grandson of whom is 15 but is already married and pregnant. ever do, soon she must revert to doing something Mrs. Freeman gives Mrs. Hopewell a report on her else more important. Although she has enough daughter’s state of nausea on an almost daily basis. respect for her father to know she should be taking Joy Hopewell is 32 years old. She has earned a Ph.D. care of him, she is too distant from him emotionally that bewilders her mother. She is an atheist, and she to know how much he is suffering. also has an artificial leg. Her leg had been shot off in RELATED LETTERS a hunting accident when she was 10 years old. Mrs. Hopewell thinks highly of the Freemans Elizabeth McKee, September 30, 1948 (HB 7); and their daughters, Glynese and Carramae, whom Elizabeth McKee, January 13, 1955 (HB 74); John Joy calls Glycerin and Caramel. She hired them Lynch, November 6, 1955 (CW 967); Maryat Lee, to work on the farm because they were not white February 24, 1957 (CW 1,023). Pages: HB: 7, 74; trash. They are good country people. They have CW: 967, 1,023. worked for her for four years now. She allows Mrs. FURTHER READING Freeman to take charge of a lot of the farm’s busi- ness. Mrs. Hopewell could tell when she hired the Darretta, John L. “From ‘The Geranium’ to ‘Judge- ment Day’: Retribution in the Fiction of Flannery Freemans as tenant farmers that Mrs. Freeman O’Connor.” pp. 21–31: Logsdon, Loren (ed.); Mayer, would need a lot to do and likes to be in charge. Charles W. (ed.) In Since Flannery O’Connor: Essays Mrs. Hopewell thinks Joy has a poor attitude. She on the Contemporary American Short Story, edited is often rude to people, perhaps because of her leg and by Loren Logsdon and Charles W. Mayer, 21–31. how she has never lived a normal life, never experi- Macomb: Western Illinois University, 1987. enced dancing or other kinds of fun. She seems to Fowler, Doreen. “Writing and Rewriting Race: Flannery be full of bitterness. When she was 21 at college, she O’Connor’s ‘The Geranium’ and ‘Judgment Day.’ ” had changed her name legally to a name that Mrs. Flannery O’Connor Review 2 (2003–04): 31–39. Hopewell assumed was the ugliest she could think Larsen, Val. “Manor House and Tenement: Failed of—Hulga. She was now legally Hulga Hopewell. Communities South and North in Flannery Hulga gradually learned to accept Mrs. Free- O’Connor’s ‘The Geranium.’ ” The Flannery man’s frequent visits since Mrs. Freeman took her O’Connor Bulletin 20 (1991): 88–103. place walking over the fields with her mother. One day Mrs. Freeman called her Hulga and continues to do so, though not in front of Mrs. Hopewell, who still refuses to do so. Hulga figured out that Mrs. “Good Country People” (1955) Freeman’s consideration of her must be because of her morbid curiosity about any hidden illness Ninth story of the collection, A Good Man Is Hard or infection. She noticed that Mrs. Freeman could to Find (Harcourt, 1955), this tale appeared in listen to her mother’s retelling of the hunting acci- HARPER’S BAZAAR the month the collection was dent that took her leg over and over again. published, June 1955. Along with “A Good Man This morning Mrs. Freeman is talking about her Is Hard to Find,” it is perhaps one of the most daughter again. Mrs. Hopewell, however, is think- anthologized of O’Connor’s short stories. ing about what kind of conversation her daughter 70 “Good Country People” must have had with Manley Pointer, the Bible sales- has a number of degrees. The salesman says that he man who had come by yesterday. He told her that does not care and asks her to prove her love. he would not lie and tell her that he was posing as a Hulga expects the salesman’s next move when, college student. Instead, he had only a short time to instead, he asks her to show him where her artificial live because of a heart condition. Mrs. Hopewell’s leg goes on. She gives out a small cry. Even though eyes instantly filled with tears at the thought that he she has learned to deal with her condition, the had the same condition as her daughter. She asked intimacy of working the leg remains hers alone. She him to stay for dinner, though as soon as she did so, barely looks at it herself when she puts it on each she regretted it. Joy took one look at him at dinner morning. Rather than expose her sensitivity about and then never looked at or spoke to him after that, it, however, she simply asks him why he wants to even when he tried to begin a conversation with her see it. He gives her a long look and replies because directly. Oddly, when Pointer had begun to leave, it is what makes her different from every one else. he leaned over and said something to Joy, and she The remark hits home. Hulga decides that she walked all the way with him to the gate. is seeing true innocence in front of her, that he has Mrs. Freeman goes on with her talk, and Mrs. discovered her essence. She surrenders herself to Hopewell responds with her repeated clichés, say- him completely. She shows him the leg, and when ing it takes all kinds of people to make the world. he asks to see her take it on and off, she does that as Hulga goes to her bedroom and locks the door. She well. When he wants to do it, she allows him, think- is going to meet Manley Pointer at the gate at 10 ing that she will run off with him, and he will put o’clock. The salesman had flirted with her at the her leg on and off each day. He takes it off again. gate the previous day and enticed her to meet him. She tells him to put it back on, but he tries During the night, she imagines that she had to kiss her again, looking back occasionally at the seduced him and then had to deal with his remorse. wooden leg. Then he tells her to wait, and he opens She would use the opportunity to allow her bril- his valise and takes out a blue box with words on liance to educate him to understand life more it, describing its contents as something to prevent deeply. She meets him on the road, and he is as disease. He takes out a deck of cards with obscene cheerful as ever, saying that he knew she would pictures on the backs and opens a Bible that is come. She wonders how he knew. He asks her age, really a box with a flask in it. He says it is time they and she says 17. had a really good time. They walk through the pasture, where Manley Hulga is shocked. She asks him if he is not good asks about her leg and she asks him why he brought country people. He says he is but that it never the Bibles. She tells him she does not believe in held him back and that he is as good as she is. She God, and he looks at her as though she is some tells him to give her back her leg. He asks what is strange animal in the zoo. He kisses her in the pas- wrong with her; they have not gotten to know each ture, and though it is her first kiss, she thinks about other yet. He thought that she believed in nothing. it more than she feels it or is moved by it. Eventu- He speaks in clichés like her mother. Hulga says ally, they make their way to the barn. that he is a Christian and says one thing and does After watching her climb to the hayloft without another, just like all of them. The salesman tells difficulty, the salesman climbs up. They kiss each her that he believes nothing of the sort. other, though all the while Hulga is thinking. Pres- When she screams for her leg, he quickly sweeps ently, the salesman tells her that he knew he loved up the items back into the valise and puts the leg her as soon as he saw her and asks her if she loves in with them. He makes his way to the hole in the him. He says she must say so. Hulga talks to him loft and starts heading down. When just his head is philosophically at a level she knows he will not above the hole, he tells her that she is not so smart.