I believe the main theme in Flannery O'Connors's short story, Good Country People is approval; everyone wants to believe that they are beautiful and we seek approval from both our parents and friends.

Authors Avatar

                

                Brewer

        Good Country People

          I believe the main theme in Flannery O'Connors's short story, “ Good Country People” is approval; everyone wants to believe that they are beautiful and we seek approval from both our parents and friends.

         In this short story a girl, Joy, longs for her mothers approval. After she is unable to get her mothers approval Joy starts believing that she is unworthy of anyone’s admiration. Joy is thirty-two years of age and has a wooden leg, which makes it even harder for her to be socially accepted. Joy's wooden leg represents the on going theme of approval in O’Connor's story. Joy changes her name to Hulga which Mrs.Hopewell feels is one of the ugliest names she could have chosen. This could be interpreted as a representation of how Joy “Hulga” feels about herself.

        I do not want to say that I do not have any beliefs, honestly I don't know what it is that I believe in. To me this story depicts the real meaning of life and how you can be happy with your own self, disability or not. By changing her name to Hulga I believe that Joy not only accepts herself but realizes that not everyone is meant to be made perfectly.

Join now!

        Hulga's main accomplishment is her education, a Ph. D in Philosophy. Joy's mother, Mrs. Hopewell did not like the fact that her daughter had gotten a Ph. D in Philosophy. “ My daughter is a schoolteacher, or even my daughter is a chemical engineer. You cant say, my daughter, the philosopher. That was something that had ended with the Greeks and Romans,” (O'Conner, 276).  Hulga's mother was never really accepting of her daughters choices.

        

        Another main character in this short story is, Manley Pointer. I could consider his role in this story to be very ironic. He goes ...

This is a preview of the whole essay