Welcome back to Dissecting The Dark Descent, where we lovingly delve into the guts of David Hartwell’s seminal 1987 anthology story by story, and in the process, explore the underpinnings of a genre we all love. For an in-depth introduction, here’s the intro post.
Flannery O’Connor might not have invented the Southern Gothic, but her work certainly helped define the genre. Through her stories of grotesque situations underpinned by what she characterized as “harsh, unsentimental realism” and exaggerated characters, she outlined a moral universe where grace and unpretentiousness were valued over more nebulous pursuits, outlined by sharp humor and stark human drama among characters who were deeply flawed both psychologically and physically. “Good Country People” showcases all these elements, observing an arrogant bully whose toxic defense mechanisms and deep resentment of herself and the world around her deliver her directly into the arms of a much greater monster, one who has accepted and embraced his flaws.
Mrs. Hopewell lives on a large onion farm called The Cedars with her tenants, the Freemans. She’s also host to her daughter Joy, a full-figured one-legged woman in her thirties who exaggerates her limp, refuses to work, and legally changed her name to “Hulga.” Mrs. Hopewell entertains her friend Mrs. Freeman’s grotesque stories about her daughters and is constantly burdened with the equally grotesque behavior of Joy-Hulga. They exist in a kind of long-suffering détente until the day a young travelling Bible salesman shows up on her doorstep. Introducing himself as “Pointer,” it’s clear that something is off about the young man, but for all the ugliness in Mrs. Hopewell and Joy’s life, Pointer’s goal is something far darker and uglier than either of them could realize.
While “Good Country People” might be partly told from Mrs. Hopewell’s point of view, it’s clear that the focus of the story is Joy, who views the world with a sneering resentment. In her introductory scene, she’s seen as a large, one-legged nuisance who shuts herself in the bathroom first thing in the morning. She’s also stuck in her family home, partly by design and partly by physical limitation—the text notes that if it wasn’t for her weak heart, she’d be living her best life at a northern university lecturing on philosophy to “people who actually knew what she was talking about.” Being stuck, treated like a child by her mother, and dealing with the limitations of a weak heart and a missing leg are by no means easy. Worse still, she’s clearly very intelligent, but she’s stuck depending on her mother. Joy resents her situation, the parts of herself she can’t change, and everything around her by proxy. She acts out, trying to give people the loathsome version of herself she thinks they see anyway.
Joy’s ugly behavior—her stomping around, wearing the same skirt and yellow sweatshirt every day, the fact that she legally changed her name to “Hulga”—also point to defense mechanisms. Among “good country folk,” her intelligence and lack of conventional attractiveness leaves her vulnerable, not just to the people she believes would look down on her for her disability, but as a woman and one with more smarts than sense in the rural South. She exaggerates her shortcomings, lumbering around her mother and Mrs. Freeman with all the grace of (as the text describes her) “a hulking battleship.” It even extends to the name “Hulga,” a grotesque sound with an unnerving mouthfeel that’s meant to be as ugly as she acts. If she’s ugly but with a mind sharper than all the people around her, then at least there’s something to her life. Her exaggerated ugliness and bright interior life makes her interesting and keeps away the people she doesn’t want to deal with. Her mannerisms and childish, antisocial behavior are an act to get out of doing things she doesn’t want to do and keep other people at bay. She’s even infuriated and scared when Mrs. Freeman homes in on the things she resents and uses them to directly needle her, reinforcing her own resentment and self-loathing in a tangible enough way to hurt her.
Lest we view Joy too sympathetically, it’s useful to point out that these things inform her experience but do not excuse it. Joy’s sin above anything else is arrogance. She treats the people around her like a joke. Her intellectualism and disability might set her apart from the “good country folk” around her, but it’s telling that she treats her mother as little more than the help; she regularly insults her, and is unwilling to help with the farm and the laborious process of weeding the onion fields on the Hopewell property. She even delights in telling her mother that she’s “got no inner light.” It’s this arrogance and superiority, as well as her intense need to bully others due to her self-loathing, that eventually dooms her.
Pointer’s is the superiority of someone who has honed his act well enough to get away with it. In fact, he seems to know exactly which buttons to push, the horror from his encounters with the Hopewells coming from the clear air of menace and manipulation surrounding him. From the moment he fake-trips into Mrs. Hopewell’s house, he tries to push all the buttons he can to convince her to give him more access. It’s also unnervingly clear he knows his intended targets, as he tells Mrs. Hopewell a (probably false) story that mirrors Joy’s own to win her sympathy. The difference is, of course, while Mrs. Hopewell is polite, she’s got enough sense to know not to buy what he’s selling. Joy, meanwhile, buys the aw-shucks country act hook line and sinker. Pointer knows which buttons to push on her, too, and for all her intelligence, Joy can’t resist the fact that he sees through her ugly act to the person underneath.
All these things make the scene of Pointer’s intimate violation (if not in the explicit sense in the psychological sense) even more tragic and horrifying. After some initial conversations, Joy takes Pointer up into the barn loft, abandoning her defense mechanisms as she goes. He takes a genuine interest in her, and she, thinking he’s a dumb Christian bumpkin fascinated by the “inner light” she has and which these “good country people” lack. There’s even an intimate moment as she shows him how to take her leg off, and he brings out a flask of whiskey, some pills, and a pack of playing cards to set the mood. Joy is (for once) not acting as a brash and arrogant grotesque but as a human being. Then when she rebuffs Pointer and his offer of sex, nudie cards, pills, and whiskey, he completely drops the gentle approach, steals her leg, and uses everything he knows about Joy to mock her for her beliefs. Joy resents her own vulnerabilities and weaponizes her ugliness, and Pointer uses his acceptance and seeming lack of ugliness as a weapon to attack those clear vulnerabilities. Joy’s inability to navigate her own humanity puts her at the mercy of a real monster, one who leaves her a pathetic, helpless wreck.
“Good Country People” is, in the end, a psychological portrait of Joy, defenses and all. In her resentment and inability to accept herself, Joy weaponizes the parts of her situation she dislikes into a grotesque bullying caricature, only to be disarmed and forced to accept her shortcomings anyway when Pointer steals her leg. O’Connor creates a tragic monster and has them then destroyed by an even larger monster, one who operates freely, unhindered by self-loathing and vulnerabilities. In the end, it’s a haunting reminder not only of the necessity of learning to love oneself, but to not pick on others you find weaker. Sometimes, you might attract the notice of a real monster.
And now to turn it over to you. Was Mrs. Freeman feeding Pointer information? Was Joy truly tragic, or merely the victim of a higher moral calculus? And what was your first experience with Flannery O’Connor’s work? (This is in fact the second time around for me, the first time was reading this story in a modern American lit class.)
And please join us in two weeks for “Mackintosh Willy,” by modern gothic superstar (and occasional lurker in our comments section) Ramsey Campbell!
