country people” whom she considered to be intellectual inferiors. Though she had great confidence in her intelligence she had very little self-esteem. Joys’ handicap made her feel ugly, so ugly that much to her mothers’ dismay, she had her name legally changed to the ugliest one she could think of, Hulga. One day a traveling bible salesman named Manley Pointer made a sales call and ended up having dinner with the family. Manley took a liking to Joy and secretly asked her to meet him the next night. She agreed, thinking he was really very simple and beneath her intellectually, but because she relished the attention she decided to humor him. In the final irony of this story, simple Manley turns out to be a very shrewd con man who lures Joy into the loft of an old barn with the intent of having sex with her. When she realizes this and resists, he steals her wooden leg and departs leaving her helpless.Flannery O’Conners “The Life You Save May Be Your Own” and “Good Country People” don’t seem to have much in common at first, but they actually have several common grotesque elements. Both make use of handicapped characters, Joy Hopewells wooden leg, Tom Shiftlets missing arm, and Lucynells deafness and mental retardation. Even the characters names in both stories tend to add to the image O’Conner was trying to create. Consider Joy (Hulga) Hopewell, who is joyless, hopeless, and unwell, and Tom T, Shiflet, which immediately brings shiftless to mind. Flannery O’Conner spent most of her adult life handicapped herself. In addition to her keen powers of observation, this was likely the source of her talent for this style of writing. Inevitably she transferred some of her personal experiences to her work, perhaps she was mirroring a personal tragedy with these two stories. The strongest common element is a female character left devastated when a man takes advantage of their handicap...
