Hulga, throughout her life has been starved for affection and loving attention. Pointer is able to get her to succumb to his wishes so easily because she is amazed that someone sincerely wants to be with her, or so it seems. Ever since she was ten, she has had her wooden stump leg, and her heart problem to live with. More recently, Hulgas weight problem is another obstacle that adds to her isolation. Combined with her condescending attitude, these encumbrances have succeeded to separate her from mainstream society. Pointer realizes this and is able to use it to his advantage; he knows all the right things to say to her. In the hayloft, Hulga hears fond admiration for what is quite possibly one of the first times in her life. As a result, the customarily very independent, strong-willed Hulga is completely under the control of an uneducated man half her age. "Its what makes you different. You aint like anybody else.She decided that for the first time in her life, she was face to face with real innocence. This boy, with an instinct that came beyond wisdom, had touched the truth about her"(404). Pointer is one of the few people in her life who was able to see the real Hulga; he saw through the cold faade.Thanks to Mr. Pointer, Hulga was able to see the truth about her situation in the worldbook smarts wont help you at all without people skills and common sense. Up till the very end, however, she was unable to come to grips with the fact that smart, educated Hulga had been deceived by someone who appeared to be nothing more than a simple country boy. Being stranded in the loft, however, forced Hulga to realize that people sometimes need to depend on each other. Something else she realized is that in life, book smarts mean very little compared with experience and knowledge of the real worldThis issue of having real world smarts as well as book smarts is especially relevant to the modern day higher education student. With all th...
