LITERATURE AND COMMUNITY

Literature and Community

Literature and Community

Good Country People

In “Good Country People,” Mrs. Hopewell's perennial optimism is balanced by what seems to be her daughter Joy's self-chosen misery. It is characteristic of Joy's attitude that she has changed her name to Hulga, evidently because it is the ugliest name she can think of. In that way, her name matches her faded sweatshirt, her scowl, and her wooden leg (she lost her leg in a hunting accident long before). While her mother is frustrated by her daughter's bad temper, she is equally frustrated by her daughter's Ph.D. in philosophy, a degree which ...