"Good Country People" by Flannery O’Connor
Copyright 1955 by Flannery O’Connor
Renewed © 1983 by Regina O’Connor
from A Good Man Is Hard to Find and Other Stories

Read for:
Short Story Sunday
Short Story Monday

 

Flipping through an anthology, trying to decide which story to read, this opening paragraph caught my eye:

Besides the neutral expression that she wore when she was alone, Mrs. Freeman had two others, forward and reverse, that she used for all her human dealings.  Her forward expression was steady and driving like the advance of a heavy truck.  Her eyes never swerved to left or right but turned as the story turned as if they followed a yellow line down the center of it.  She seldom used the other expression because it was not often necessary for her to retract a statement, but when she did, her face came to a complete stop, there was an almost imperceptible movement of her black eyes, during which they seemed to be receding, and then the observer would see that Mrs. Freeman, though she might stand there as real as several grain sacks thrown on top of each other, was no longer there in spirit.

Now come on. How could I continue looking after finding something like this?

Not too long ago, I discovered Flannery O’Connor in another anthology. “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” was my introduction to this author and the impetus to try and find more of her work. I was pleasantly surprised to find this story and couldn’t wait to read it.

“Good Country People” is about perceptions. How easily they are applied, yet rarely accurately. Even more than that, it depicts how we convince ourselves we are better than, or worse off, than others; that little can penetrate this belief and change it, unless it is faced with an act so harsh, so devastating, one is forced to re-evaluate their original assessment. And even then, do we see the forest for the trees, or retain a tight grip on our own reality because it’s not as scary as the truth?

There is so much to this story. New layers appear each time I read it. If I tried to explain each one this review would go on for days. It’s because of this, I wish I’d discovered this author while in school. Now she is someone I can write a term paper on and never have to worry about making the length requirement! (For the record, I was lucky enough to be able to write two, yes two, on Virginia Woolf: she too, was a writer I had no problems gathering material on.)

The characters here, as in all of O’Connor’s works, are well developed. The above quote accurately introduces you to Mrs. Freeman, while the following does Joy (Hulga) Hopewell a fair amount of justice too:

…and the large hulking Joy, whose constant outrage had obliterated every expression from her face, would stare just a little to the side of her, her eyes icy blue, with the look of someone who has achieved blindness by an act of will and means to keep it.

As the story progresses, we learn how Joy legally changed her name to “Hulga”. The word “joy” has a meaning that she feels undeserving of, because of her “affliction”. She lost her leg in a hunting accident while very young. This tragedy changed her self-image so much that she chooses a name more representative of how she sees herself: ugly.

She had arrived at it first purely on the basis of its ugly sound and then the full genius of its fitness had struck her. She had a vision of the name working like the ugly sweating Vulcan who stayed in the furnace…One of her major triumphs was that her mother had not been able to turn her dust into Joy, but the greater one was that she had been able to turn it herself into Hulga.

As I said earlier, there is more than I can cover here. So of course, I’m recommending you read this, several times, in order for you to see the depth for yourself. In fact, the author says it best:

You tell a story because a statement would be inadequate. When anybody asks what a story is about, the only proper thing is to tell him to read the story. The meaning of fiction is not abstract meaning but experienced meaning, and the purpose of making statements about the meaning of a story is only to help you to experience that meaning more fully.

In a way, that statement, as confusing as it sounds at first, makes sense to me – especially since I always feel that my reviews can never convey fully what I’ve read. I can only make “statements about the meaning of a story” and hope I am also getting across my “experienced meaning” as much as anything else.

Upon my initial reading, I wasn’t sure how I was going to rate “Good Country People”. However, after giving it some time and several re-reads, I feel fine giving it 5 Stars.

I must admit though, I may just have to come up with a different rating system for short stories. They simply cannot compare, or be compared to, novels and novellas. As I read more of them, I am discovering they are a different animal altogether, so perhaps they should be rated as such.

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Flannery O’Connor works include two novels, The Violent Bear It Away and Wise Blood. She also has two short story collections, A Good Man Is Hard to Find and Everything That Rises Must Converge. Both collections were consolidated, and several other stories added, for The Complete Stories published posthumously in 1971.

Flannery O’Connor succumbed to complications from Lupus at the age of thirty-nine.

“A Good Man is Hard to Find” by Flannery O’Connor
Reprinted in 40 Short Stories: A Portable Anthology
by permission of Harcourt, Inc.

Read for:
C.B.’s Short Story Sunday
John’s Short Story Monday

Advisory: This story contains language of a nature that might offend some readers. However, taken in context, the terms and names used are not done in a gratuitous manner. Bigotry did exist at the time, and this is the setting in which this story is set. In addition, the ending is extremely disturbing.

After reading the above, it will be interesting to see how many will read this story or not. I can tell you that it began well, however the ending was so upsetting, I doubt I will ever recommend it without a warning. Even as I write this, I remain strongly affected.

When I first heard the title, I immediately imagined a story about a relationship, or perhaps someone in search of one. It actually means just what it says: as one character notes, “A good man is hard to find…Everything is getting terrible. I remember the day you could go off and leave your screen door unlatched. Not no more.”

This reminded me of how I grew up, in a neighborhood where everyone knew each other well enough that strangers would stick out like a sore thumb. There was no need to lock our doors and windows.

Then came the end of the decade; Martin Luther King assassinated, the Zodiac Killer, Charles Manson and his followers. Things changed then. Fear crept into our lives and our neighborhoods. We started using locks on our doors and windows – and trust.

In a “Good Man Is Hard to Find”, I was left with a number of questions regarding the perception of good and evil.  How protected are we against those who are not afraid of the consequences? A good man has a conscience, and this it what helps him to abide by societies norms and laws.

But if these men (and women) are becoming harder and harder to find, who do you trust, who do you fear? What kind of evil is let loose when the goodness in us has died away?

There is also the concept of redemption. What if you were faced with someone who felt they were beyond redemption and that there is no such thing as salvation? No matter what you say or do, you are powerless to convince them that there is any good left in them, and thus have to face whatever evil they wish to inflict upon you.

This is how the story ends. It is not a happy ending – and that is the only spoiler I’ll offer.

I am giving this story 4 Stars. It is a good story yet it disturbed me. Still does every time I think about it. But, as you can see, it raises a lot of questions. It will be interesting to see who has read this, and what you thought about it.

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Flannery O’Connor works include two novels, The Violent Bear It Away and Wise Blood. She also has two short story collections, A Good Man Is Hard to Find and Everything That Rises Must Converge. Both collections were consolidated, and several other stories added, for The Complete Stories published posthumously in 1971.

Flannery O’Connor succumbed to complications from Lupus at the age of thirty-nine.