Is being an intellectual dangerous? In the event having even more knowledge than another person could cause trouble in 2014, then simply exceptional intelligence certainly helped bring even more hazards to the bearer in Flannery O’Connor’s society. O’Connor, one of the most famous Southern Gothic authors, generally wrote regarding the peril of intellectuals in her day. With one of the oddest endings, the short account “Good Country People, inches fitting very well with O’Connor’s common topic, tells the story of the grumbling atheist Delight Hopewell and the traveling Scriptures salesman Manley Pointer. Following beginning with female focus on the interaction among Joy’s mother and the child, the story changes to fine detail Joy and Manley’s ill-fated romp inside the barn exactly where his authentic colors are revealed and Joy’s wood made leg can be stolen. Delight Hopewell’s professed “kind of salvation¦ [in realizing] that there are nothing to see” prevents her from seeking past the mentally intellectual fa? ade of Manley Pointer (13), realizing his authentic belief that “good nation people” do not get far is obviously (15), and understanding that the 2 actually carry very similar morals.
Even though Joy sights herself since enlightened, her scholarly perception that man existence keeps no deeper meanings blinds her to several aspects of lifestyle and associations. Her narrowness of perspective, the reason behind her name differ from “Joy” to “Hulga, ” shines through in that your woman “doesn’t just like dogs or perhaps cats or birds or perhaps flowers or perhaps nice small men” (4). Joy fails to find delight in nature or people because the girl believes there is nothing even more to these people then the reality they simply take up space. The polysyndeton from the sentence focuses on the great number of objects which may have no meaning to her, and in looking at the world in this restricted way, your woman misses the straightforward beauty of your rose and finds fairly little happiness in the world about her. Hulga instead focuses her clinical inquisitions on the philosophical areas of humanity as being a species rather than the nature of its individual members and thus “decide[s] that¦she [is] face to face with true innocence” in Manley Tip (14). To get a girl that views their self as above others in her “economy” due to her supposedly excellent intellectual morals (12), Hulga fails to appearance past her own convictions to see the young man for his true damaged self. If she acknowledged that her perspective might not exactly always apply at every aspect of existence, she might have subsequently applied her cleverness to detect Manley’s undercover dress.
Manley’s fake spiritual ideology that God comes first in his lifestyle gives him an surroundings which not only immediately brings about praise and trust yet also is the construction for his deceptive disguise. As soon as the young man announces that he “wants to devote [his] lifestyle to Christian service” as they “has a heart condition” and “may not live long, inch Mrs. Hopewell invites him to supper (7). The young Holy book salesman’s recognition with a spiritual calling great similarity to Hulga’s condition transform him into a correctly respectable physique of the time. No-one would imagine a man therefore understandably dedicated to an erect career path may have a true character different than what he reveals. Even when initially alone with Hulga, Manley, reminding her that inch[one] can never tell” when the requirement for the phrase of Goodness may happen, continues his frontage of religious devotion (12). While misleading both Mrs. Hopewell as well as the college-educated Hulga, the “Christian” boy misleads us because readers as well. Before the interaction in the hvalp loft, there is no way for us to tell that Manley’s mentality differs via what he admits that. This lack of perception contributes to Hulga’s keeping of all her trust in him and eventually to her understanding that the lady should not possess afforded him any of her confidence. Manley Pointer raises assurance in his morals and blindsides not only the personas in the account but also the readers simply by professing a deep and seemingly legitimate spiritual mind.
The truth is, Manley, a smart con musician with a negative outlook on life, is convinced that staying simply great simply holds one again. He tells Hulga that in order to confirm her appreciate for him she need to “show [him] how to take it [her solid wood leg] off and on” (14). He so convincingly twists an emotion that Hulga does not even believe in so that she will generate herself totally vulnerable to him. Manley ensures the success of his devious program by acting so seemingly “in love” with her that the lady does not think that he would always be the one using this feeling against her. When Hulga acknowledges his scheme, he discloses to her that he “may sell Bibles but [he] knows which in turn end is usually up¦and where [he is] going” (15). Though Manley participates within an honest occupation, the use of the conjunction “but” signifies that he believes amazing benefits in itself will not get him where he really wants to go. This individual feels as if he must offer an advantage above people, such as the other person lacking a leg, in order to achieve his desires. In disclosing his crafty web of is placed, the young man reveals his wicked id in which the just purpose of any kind of good-naturedness should be to cover up his schemes.
Although Hulga would never wish to will, she and Manley Tip harmonize inside their intellectual philosophy more than one may think. Over the short account, O’Connor continuously describes Hulga as a “girl” rather than a “woman, ” although she is thirty two, and Manley as a “boy” instead of a “man, ” although he is 19, in order to highlight that other characters view them while immature and childlike. In an intellectual sense, both character types have expert mindsets, Hulga’s comes from her extensive and lengthy education and Manley’s derives from his life experiences. Instead, both truly are ingenuo in that they fail to identify other facets of life past worldly findings. When Manley professes that God need to watch over Hulga, she blatantly says that she “[does not] actually believe in God” (11), and later we find that he will not “believe in that crap” both (15). The dual atheism of the characters highlights how each of them attained the same place by several paths. Wherever Hulga’s search for knowledge prospects her to disbelief in God in the same way it leads her for the barn, Manley’s quest to be in control brings him to an identical place the two mentally and physically. Likewise, both concede ” to be more exact openly proclaim ” a central idea in practically nothing (13, 15). Hulga’s certainty influences her to see nothing in the smokescreen of Manley’s spirituality and Manley’s causes him to find out nothing inside the value of Hulga being a person. Although characters’ parallel beliefs are deeply psychologically rooted, simply Hulga’s is usually roughly uprooted by the end from the story. If perhaps Hulga experienced recognized several of her very own characteristics in Manley in that case she likely would have managed him very differently and avoided shedding not only her leg yet also her dignity and the confidence the lady held in her own intellectual ideology.
To Hulga Hopewell’s drawback, she fails to look past her own rigid job of practically nothing as the girl unfortunately sights her own intellectual concepts as in the end superior to the ones from other people and in doing so fails to identify related ideology in Manley Tip and understand him intended for his authentic devious, disbelieving nature. Through “Good Nation People, ” one can very easily notice Flannery O’Connor’s repudiation of nihilism, the ideology that “all values are baseless and nothing in the world can be known or perhaps communicated” (Pratt). One can see that there is much more to the two Manley and Hulga than their ideologies would profess and that moral and spiritual values do exists, whether or not they are honored or not. Is being a great intellectual dangerous? While not almost all intellect causes disaster, the tragic end of the history teaches all of us that a understanding acceptance of nothing is not merely ungrounded, yet also perilous.
Works Mentioned
OConnor, Flannery. Very good Country Persons. (1955): 1-16. UFL. School of Fl, 2014. Net. 10 Oct. 2014.
Pratt, Joe. Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Nihilism. N. p., 2014. Web. ’08 Oct. 2014.
