Psychoanalytic+Criticism+in+Good+Country+People

Kate Paccioretti Professor Nicosia Modern American Fiction April 27, 2010 Psychoanalytic Criticism in //Good Country People// Flannery O’Connor is well-known for writing psychologically disturbing stories. Her stories have twisted characters and unexpected endings, and shock readers with the troubling content. Because her stories play with the minds of the readers so much, psychoanalytic critics have a field day interpreting and analyzing her works. Arguably one of her most disturbing stories that must be studied psychoanalytically is //Good Country People//.

Sigmund Freud provides us with the foundation for psychoanalytic criticism, despite many criticisms of his theories. In his economic model, he introduces the concepts of the pleasure principle and the reality principle. The pleasure principle is comparable to his concept of the “id,” the drive that craves instant sexual gratification and ignores all of society’s rules and boundaries. The reality principle, similar to the “superego,” recognizes that there is a need for societal regulations and is in constant battle with the pleasure principle for a balance (Bressler 145). When Hulga and Manley were walking on their outing, he suddenly grabs her and kisses her, demonstrating the pleasure principle, because it is described as having “more pressure than feeling behind it,” (O’Connor 285). While Hulga felt a rush of adrenalin, powered by her pleasure principle, her reality principle immediately set in and she internalized it in her mind. She described it as an “unexceptional experience and all a matter of the mind’s control,” which is her balancing the pleasure principle with the reality principle (286).

Another primary principle of Freud’s is that all literary works are to be interpreted like dreams (Bressler 149). Freud describes dreams in his famous work //The Interpretation of Dreams// as being unconscious expressions of repressed desires, wishes, and pleasures. Dream interpretation relies heavily on symbols and what the symbols represent in the unconscious of an individual. If //Good Country People// is to be viewed as a dream, there are some symbols that would have to be analyzed. One of the largest continuing themes of symbols is that of colors in the text. For example, Manley’s black suitcase represents the morbidity of its contents later on, and his “large red hand” represents danger (O’Connor 284). Some other important color interpretations are Manley’s bright blue suit and yellow socks, symbolizing trust, reliability, and comfort, and the pink weeds and pink speckled hillsides symbolizing love, all of which are broken at the end of the text (286, 287).

The most important symbol in the story is Hulga’s wooden leg. To dream of having a wooden leg typically represents restoring order in your life and being able to support yourself again without the help of others. Hulga is independent and was comfortable in her life before Manley came along, and when he removed her wooden leg, he essentially removed her ability to support herself and stand on her own (289). He also tells her that he likes her glasses and removes them later on, and when glasses are removed or broken in dreams it symbolizes not being able to see clearly and seeing facts incorrectly, as she does when she assumes Manley is a good person (287). She also eats eggs often, which normally represent fertility, but she cracks them and eats them, representing a fragile and vulnerable state of mind (282).

Hulga describes a dream she has in the story, which Freud would also stress interpreting for psychoanalytic criticism. In her dream, Manley and her walk to a barn. Barns symbolize repressed feelings in the unconscious (a Freudian concept) and holding back urges and actions that may be instinctual (the pleasure principle). In the dream she assumes the role of an educator, taking his feelings of remorse and teaching him something more significant about life. This is a repressed desire of Hulga's, who is very educated and if it were not for her leg would be speaking to groups of intellectuals and teaching them. In her dreams, as Freud theorizes, her unconscious desires and repressed wishes are manifested (284).

Two of the primary archetypes in Carl Jung’s analytical psychology are the anima and the animus, or the feminine in the male and the masculine in the female, respectively (Bressler 151). These elements are found in both Manley and Hulga, as she is a more masculine character and he displays feminine qualities. Hulga changed her name from Joy, a beautiful, feminine name, to the ugliest name she could come up with (which she did personally come up with, because the name is not found in name origin databases), eliminating her feminine identity. She also had her leg blown off quite graphically in a hunting accident, which is a typically male activity (O’Connor 274). She is described as “hulking,” (similar to how Fitzgerald describes Tom Buchanan as “hulking” in //The Great Gatsby//), a word normally used to describe larger men (273).

Until it is revealed later to be part of his scam, Manley Pointer exhibits some qualities of Jung’s anima archetype. He is more emotional than Hulga, telling her wonderful things about her and how much he likes her before she ever returns the feelings. When they are in the loft and he is seducing her, he tells her he loves her and gets offended and upset when she doesn’t say she loves him back (287). These over-emotional and needy qualities are more typically used to describe females, and while they are not sincere in Manley, until he is exposed he can be seen as a more feminine character.

While there are many theorists of psychoanalytic criticism, like Jacques Lacan and Northrop Frye, Freud and Jung are arguably the most commonly known and widely used. Their ideas and theories may not be universally accepted, but they provide a strong foundation for the field. The deep-rooted psychological content of Flannery O’Connor’s //Good Country People// calls to be studied using this school of criticism because of all the rich symbolism embedded in the text, and can only be better appreciated through looking at the text through this lens.

Works Cited Bressler, Charles E. "Psychoanalytic Criticism." //Literary Criticism: An Introduction to Theory and Practice//. 4th ed. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2007. 142-66. Print. O'Connor, Flannery. "Good Country People." //The Complete Stories//. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1971. 271-91. Print.