Emily Norman
March 24, 2015
Ms. Moore
Engl 1102

Ironic Titles A title to a story can send mixed thoughts through a readers mind. In one aspect the reader may think the story will be exactly what the title says but in another, they story could throw them for a loop. Titles are ironic in many stories because they portray an idea or image of what the story could possibly be about into a readers head. However, when they finish the story, the reader may feel as if the image the title gave them was completely different than the ending of the story. The title in Flannery O’Conner’s story “Good Country People” is portrayed as ironic because of its belief that all country people are ‘good’. Flannery O’Conner uses characterization and the themes of good versus evil to have physical and psychological problems of the characters to create the irony. She introduces Mrs. Hopewell who has irony in her own name, as well as her daughter Joy/Hulga. Joy/Hulga’s irony is more complex to understand because she has her PhD in Philosphy, but once she got sick she came home to stay with her mother, and calls herself Hulga now because she feels ugly because of her wooden leg. Joy/Hulga feels like the people whom live with her, the hired help and her mother have a better life than she and are more knowledgeable even though she has the education. She feels sorry for herself. When Manly Pointer arrives on the farm he tests everyone who lives there. He tests them not by paper and pencil but by on how well they think they can see good and evil. They all fail. Mrs. Hopewell is probably the first to fail Manly’s test. She fell for his lies about being sick, and not having long to live. She also should have caught how he stated the Bible passage incorrectly, but she was way too caught up in helping this man, for Joy. She fell for this simply because of how Joy/Hulga is, she thought she understood. Joy/Hulga fell for Manly’s mean tricks in the barn loft on their “date”. She had a big plan to seduce the “Bible Salesman” and make him fool around with her. Manly beat her to it. He had tricked her into showing him and teaching him how to take her wooden leg off. Once she let him take it off of her, he refused to put it back on. She begged for him to, and said