The main characters and surrounding flat characters are comic in that they are inferior characters whom the reader judges as deserving a comeuppance of some kind. In "Good Country People," Joy- Hulga "[believes] herself to be of superior intellect" which leads her to be scammed by Manley Pointer, the bible salesman (Magill 382). Although she is thirty-two years old, Joy continues to live with her mother, Mrs. Hopewell. Mrs. Hopewell is a very optimistic, peerky woman. Her daughter's name contasts her true identity. She is rebellious and stubborn " with the look of someone who has achieved blindness by an act of will and means to keep it" (O'Conner 391). Mrs. Hopewell treats her like a young child because of her prosthetic leg. In spite of her mother, Joy changes her name to Hulga. Along with the unruly attitude she shows towards her mother, Hulga considers herself better than everyone else because of her PhD in philosophy. When she meets Manley Pointer, she believes that she is much smarter than he and she can seduce him with her intellect. She sees him as a simple man. In fact, she realizes that "she had seduced him without even making up her mind to try"(O'Conner 402). She senses

The plot of both stories culminates in a surprise act of violence, and as in tragedy, the character suffers out of proportion to her misdeeds. This suffering leaves the reader with an uneasy feeling that might be described as an effect in neither caustic comedy- not quite tragedy nor pathos because O'Connor distances the reader from the characters- yet in a quirky way, the characters do indeed make a discovery, evoking some pity. Though not anticipating the exact nature of the downfall, the reader has experienced some fear for the character. Whether this fear extends to us might have to do with our own introspection and self-evaluation. In "Good Country People" Joy-Hulga is just an ordinary girl with a prosthetic leg. She has a weak heart and "agrees to go on a picnic with a young Bible salesman and country bumpkin named Manley Pointer, hoping that she can seduce him, her intellectual inferior"(Magill 382). Thinking that she is in control of the situation, she lets the man take on and off her leg. The tables are turned when the perverted man asks to see her leg and then run away with it. While holding on to her leg, he explains to her that he is not the man she thinks he is. He fools her, for Manley Pointer is not his real name. He changes his name for every woman he meets. Not only that, but he has also taken a woman's glass eye previously. Joy-Hulga is taken advantage of, yet it is really funny. It is a very disturbing scene, although the reader sits back and laughs. Then again, in the midst of the humor, a young girl has been tricked by a bible salesman and is left without a leg. He takes her by complete surprise. She thought she was playing him when in reality, he deceives her. The absurdity of a bible salesman being a total fraud over takes the reality of the incident.

Joy- Hulga's experience is very similar to the grandmother's in "A Good Man is Hard to Find." At the beginning of the story, the grandmother is already complaining about not wanting to go to Florida for a vacation with her son Bailey and his children. She explains that that is where the Misfit is headed. For endless hours, she babbles on about this plantation with secret passages, when it actually was in Tennessee. The family meets their fate when the grandmother's cat causes a wreck leaving them on the side of the road with no help. They wait on the side of a dirt road that " looked as if no one had traveled on it for months" looking for someone to help them out (O'Conner 410). To their excitement three men drive up in a "big black battered hearse-like automobile" and stop at the family's car (O'Conner 411). The grandmother realizes that the older man in the glasses looks familiar and screams, " You're the Misfit!"(O'Conner 412). Unaware of the consequences and the man's intentions, she lectures the Misfit about how he is actually a good man and Jesus would help him out if he prayed. She continues to interrogate the Misfit on his life. Once she hits a weak spot, the origins of his name, she believes that she is off the hook. He becomes sentimental and spills a lot of personal information to the old lady. After telling her these thing

Some common words found in the essay are:
Manley Pointer, You're MisfitO'Conner, Manley Pointer's, Christian O'Conner, Joy- Hulga's, Hopewell Hopewell, Country People, Manley Pointers, Bailey Tennessee, Flanner O'Conner's, manley pointer, bible salesman, country people, o'conner 404, jesus help, o'conner 403, story grandmother, wooden leg, prosthetic leg, irony lies,
Approximate Word count = 2112
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page double spaced)