Good country people name symbolism (edited) Final Draft

Ginelove Bongarcon
Mrs. S. Aiken
English 1102
September 30, 2009
The Hidden Meaning of Names
What is in a name? Does it have the power to break you or make you? How does it influence you as a person living with this name. In O’Connor, “Good Country People” the names of the characters revealed the role they play in the story and how much they live up to their names. For starter we have Mrs. Freeman, her previous employer warned Mrs. Hopewell that “She’s got to be into everything, she’s the nosiest woman ever to walk the earth”, and “she’ll want to know all your business” (O'Connor 101). For one thing she can’t seem to keep her mouth shout, she certainly felt free to say whatever she wanted, when she wanted. Even though she’s good country people but she’s always want to be right. The meaning of her name mean freed from bound servitude to an overlord. When in fact she's far from being free, she is tied to the hip with this dysfunctional family. She had three expressions, a neutral expression when she was alone and a forward and reserve one when she was around people. But she never used the reserve one because "it was not often necessary for her to retract a statement (O'Connor 100). Mrs. Freeman was someone who had a fondness for details of secrets infections, hidden deformities, assaults upon children, and of diseases. Only a sick person can find pleasure in things like that; or it's because she wanted to hold all the cards so she can blackmail you with what she knew. On the other hand we have Mrs. Hopewell, it symbolize that there’s always hope. She’s a patient woman and all is well with her; she embraces her faith and the way life is. She had sayings that might give people hope or lift their spirit. Some of them include, “Nothing is perfect”, “That is life” and the most important was “Well, other people have their own opinions too” (O'Connor 101). Although, she suppose to be a good country people in reality she’s a fake; she thinks that she’s better than other people especially Mrs. Freeman. Her goal was to provide hope to others; but she failed miserably when it comes to her daughter. Now we have Hulga, her name was really Joy but when she turned twenty-one and away from home, she had it legally changed. She still responded to Mrs. Hopewell as joy, but in a mechanical way. Her artificial leg made her really negative and hardened her heart toward everyone and excludes God in her life. She let her deform leg shape her as a person, and she hides behind it. She considered the name her personal affair. She arrived at it first purely on the basis of its ugly sound, “the ugliest name in any language”. She had a vision of the name working like the ugly sweating Vulcan who stayed in the furnace and to whom, presumably, the goddess had to come when called. She declares to her mom “If you want me, here I am- LIKE I AM” (O'Connor 102). She’s really asking to be love the way she is without spoken it out loud. Her leg is her strength and vulnerability but it also reinforces her differences from others. Her weakness exposed when her leg is taken, because Manley force her to face the truth about her for the first time. Now she doesn’t have the leg as a hideout against the truth, there is “a wooden part of her soul that corresponds to her wooden leg”. She chose that name because she thinks it represent the ugliness she feels inside, in turn she create this mechanism to protect herself against any kind of hurt and love. Having two different names split her personality. We can only conclude as Hulga, she became a woman who feared loneliness but wanted to be left alone. She had a self-centered approach to life and was a difficult person to live with. She had the tendency to hide her feeling or not be aware of her real feelings. But if she had embraced her name as Joy even after the accident she would have become happy. She could had put it to use by being a teacher, or an advisor. She could have being an inspiration to others by all she accomplished in spite of her life situation. As Joy she could have use her abilities to take risk and impact the world. The character of Manley Pointer’s, name can break down into two parts; first Manley sound like manly meaning he’s a strong and protective but he’s really weak and have a bad heart. At least that’s the story he’s telling people to feel sympathy for him. The second part into his name is Pointer like he’s pointing at something as the story progress, he did point to Hulga her way of thinking that she was smarter than anyone was bogus and that she need to face the truth about who she really was. Hulga really thought that she had the upper hand and she would take advantage of Manley but we learned that he changed things around and made her fall for him and gave him the most important things to her which was her leg. He was a smooth con-man who pretends he didn't know anything. When in fact he was truly knowledgeable about many things. As for the characters of Glynese and Carramae or Caramel/Glycerin they were a little too easygoing and were worring about the wrong at their age. They could have learned from Joy the importance of educated oneself before worry about man and having kids. Although, there is nothing wrong about having a companion in your life but it's good to be your own independent person. And that your spouse and your children doesn't define you as a person. Flannery O'Connor intented for its reader to not judge a book by it's cover. We may see a person and conclude about them that they are good or bad. But people have many layers and suprises and you can never assume things about anyone by just looking at them. Because they might just give you the shock of your life.