Good Country People

Throughout the story, O’Connor uses point of view to carefully direct the reader’s attention to the hypocrisy of the characters and the disconnect between their self-concept and how others perceive them. The limited omniscience alternates between Mrs. Hopewell, whose perspective is dominant in the story’s first half, and Hulga, who the narrator follows closely in the second half. There are notable shifts in the narrative that key the reader in on the characters’ opinions of one another: Hulga is exclusively referred to as her birth name Joy, for example, when the reader sees things from Mrs. Hopewell’s point of view. The point of view also employs the technique of free indirect discourse, which allows O’Connor’s narrator to embody both the inner thoughts and words of the character while commenting upon them as the narrator; a passage like “Mrs. Hopewell had no bad qualities of her own but she was able to use other people’s in such a constructive way that she had kept them four years” (Page 264) demonstrates how useful this technique is in storytelling, as it blends what Mrs. Hopewell thinks of herself with the narrator’s subtle judgment of her character.

Using limited omniscience (instead of a fully omniscient third-person narrator) also allows the narrative to further its themes about how a person’s worldview shapes their opinion of others. It also keeps the reader on the outside of Manley Pointer’s true intentions in the story—the reader is led to believe that the primary ideological conflict will take place between Mrs. Hopewell and Hulga because they are the two perspectives the reader is offered, which heightens the tension and surprise of Manley embodying an outside, fully nihilistic philosophy.