Friday, April 30, 2010
"Good Country People" by Flannery O' Conner
This story is a fairly short read, but I found it to be very twisted at the end. As I was reading this story I believed the good country boy was really going to turn this gals thoughts and attitude around. I figured he would place something positive in her life, but sadley I found out it was not true. I do not want to give the end of the book away. It would be like someone telling what happened at the end of a movie and if you are really anxious to go see it is spoiled when the end is revealed. I would recommend reading this story. Flannerry O' Conner had a very short life span, but her work has been recommended as one of the finest in the twentieth century in The Norton Anthology American Literature book ( Loeffelholz, 2569).
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I totally agree with you that this story really shocked me as to how it ended. Isn't it amazing how a good story or movie can have the particpant hooked in the story only to drop a bomb so to speak as the story unfolds and as the chracter one thought they understood now changes. In Good Country People, Manley Pointer really turned out to be a bad person and like you this was a surpise to me. As I read, I thought it was great how Manley seemed to be able to get close to Joy/Hulga and they seemed to have common things that made them help one another. With his selling Bibles and all it seemed that he had potential and that he could be the perfect person to help this story be good from start to finish. In the barn when he took her leg from her and when he revealed to her what he really was I for sure could not put this story down as I had been fooled to think different of him. As he said, "I hope you dont think that I belive in that crap" as he referred to Christianity." I may sell Bibles but I know which end is up and I wasnt born yesterday and I know where I am going!" I could not believe that the story ended this way and I felt sad for Hulga. I also felt sorry for Manley "I been believing in nothing ever since I was born". The title and the writing of this story made it easy to miss the ending and to think that this story was good when really it showed the evil in the lives of some.
ReplyDeleteI was rather disappointed in the ending of this story. I had rather believed that it was truly fate that brought the two together, yet one should have known as soon as they heard of the age difference! LOL! Soulmates are generally the same age in general consensus! Anyway, she learns a hard lesson. She builds up a wall think it will protect her, yet this wall is the very fall of Jerico. One cannot simply shut off the world, thinking that to observe its errors is to reveal that which would cause the pain and somehow prevent it. It is putting faith in an unforeseen god as it were of illumination, yet thinking that the illumination is founded upon solid rock, when people are not always what they appear to be. In her wisdom, she overlooks the obvious. Her mother's thoughts of her having no common sense ring out. It is sad, but true. Education does not necessarily bring wisdom.
ReplyDeleteI was completely shocked as well! I admit, when I am completing the questions for a story I like to do it as I read. I started writing out my answers and had to go back and revise them all. I have to say I did not feel very bad for Joy as I should have. She was just such a sour puss that I felt it almost served her right. Maybe I am a mean person. Even as I say it I feel mean about it. If she wouldn't have been so down about everything it would have been a lot easier to have compassion for her.
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