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Situational Irony
Style
Explanation and Analysis:
O’Connor’s writing style in “Good Country People” features free indirect discourse, rich figurative language, as well as humor and irony. The following passage from the beginning of the story showcases all of these elements:
Nothing is perfect. This was one of Mrs. Hopewell’s favorite sayings. Another was: that is life! And still another, the most important, was: well, other people have their opinions too. She would make these statements, usually at the table, in a tone of gentle insistence as if no one held them but her, and the large hulking Joy, whose constant outrage had obliterated every expression from her face, would stare just a little to the side of her, her eyes icy blue, with the look of someone who has achieved blindness by an act of will and means to keep it.
O’Connor uses free indirect discourse at the beginning of this passage by having the third-person narrator briefly enter the mind of the character rather than simply report on it. Rather than saying, “Nothing is perfect, Mrs. Hopewell thought,” O’Connor has the narrator state Mrs. Hopewell’s thought directly, as if it came from them. Writers employ free indirect discourse to help readers directly experience the thoughts and motivations of the characters, bringing them closer into the story.
This passage also contains rich figurative language that likewise helps bring readers into the story. O’Connor uses imagery when describing Mrs. Hopewell’s tone as one of “gentle insistence” and also describing Hulga as “hulking” with “eyes icy blue.” She also uses hyperbole when noting how Hulga’s “constant outrage had obliterated every expression from her face” and how, when Mrs. Hopewell made her empty pronouncements about life, Hulga’s face would have the “look of someone who has achieved blindness by an act of will and means to keep it.”
O’Connor’s hyperboles here are quite humorous and capture the irony of Mrs. Hopewell seeing herself as a deeply insightful person when her "insights" are actually just platitudes (that Hulga, as a more educated person, is able to see). O’Connor employs humor and irony throughout the story to capture the ways that her characters each view themselves as superior to others when they are, in actuality, all equally blind to their own flaws.
Related Themes:
