Good Country People: Tension in Relationships

In the short story “Good Country People”, O’Conner used dialogue between Joy/Hulga and her mother, and narrative point of view, to illustrate the tension between the two protagonists and how their actions affected their relationship.

In an attempt to ignore the pain and suffering of the traumatic accident, Mrs. Hopewell would treat Joy/Hulga as a child. When Joy/Hulga was only ten years old her leg, from just above the knee down, was completely blown off in a hunting incident. As a result, she would be a completely changed person, as she was conscious for the entire horrific accident, for the rest of her life. Months following the event, she used a wooden prosthetic that would fit snugly over …show more content…
There was an abundance of ways that she could make sure everyone in the room recognizes her leg, but no one's opinion mattered to her as long as she could obtain her mother’s painful acknowledgement. As stated in the short story, “she could walk without making the awful noise, but she made it- Mrs. Hopewell was certain- because it was ugly-sounding”, Thus, it was Joy/Hulga’s intentions to always remind her mother of her imperfections. She did this because she wanted her mother to understand her for who she was now and not who she was before the accident. In an effort for her mother to see through to the person she used to be, Joy/ Hulga created a new persona, “She saw it as … her highest creative act” and created Hulga to spite, her mother. After coming across the first half of her image, the name, purely because it sounded so ugly; soon after, she discovered it was described as the genius behind it. Her name had the same sort of ugliness, or imperfection that she possessed in her physical appearance. The second half was her personality change that happened simultaneously with the change of her name from Joy to Hulga. Part of this created persona was to be tough along with being very stubborn and it stuck in her own ways, Mrs. Hopewell said, “every year she grew less like other people and more like herself-bloated, rude, and squinted-eyed”. And, this personality change was the second half of this new persona was created while she was at college and away from her mother. Indeed, Mrs. Hopewell cared about the image of herself and her family to others and Joy/Hulgas “rudeness” was clearly a direct attack on