Good Country People

Monica Carol Miller, writing for Middle Georgia State University, stated that Joy represents a class of characters in southern literature that use ugliness as a way to avoid traditional southern expectations for women to marry and become primarily homemakers, in contrast to the idea of the southern belle. Miller also states that the southern concept of ugliness extends to both appearance and behavior,[3] and refers to the theme of ugliness in this literature as the "ugly plot".[4] This "ugly plot" often includes a conflict between mothers attempting to make their daughters eligible for the traditional roles and expectations, causing the daughters to rebel further. According to Miller, this is reflected in Good Country People by dinner-table suggestions made by Mrs. Hopewell about smiling that lead to Joy storming off while referencing philosophy.[5] Noting that Joy's appearance and behavior are intentional, she suggests that this intentionality is what angers Mrs. Hopewell about Joy's behavior. Miller also suggests that Joy uses ugliness as a way to choose intellectualism rather than more traditional southern domestic life.[6] She also sees social class as playing a role in Joy's behavior. Because the Hopewells are higher-status landowners, Joy is able to pursue intellectualism rather than domesticism, while two lower-class female character in the story (the Freeman sisters) are portrayed as having no options other than marriage. Miller writes "ugliness as a choice [...] points to the material requirements of being able to imagine alternatives to expectations of gender".[7]

Davis J. Leigh, writing for Renascence, notes that O'Connor's writings reflect her Roman Catholic faith. One of her influences was theologian Romano Guardini, who stated "what Christ suffered, God suffered". Leigh describes O'Connor's philosophy on the matter as suffering being "a shared experience with Christ".[8] O'Connor herself spent the last 13 years of her life suffering from the effects of lupus.[9] Leigh equates Joy's removal of her wooden leg for the Bible salesman as showing a willingness to share her sufferings with the salesman, who then uses her trust of him to state that she had faith in something. Leigh also describes the salesman as a suffering character, trapped in a secular mind. His rejection of Joy is a mockery of her suffering and a rejection of his own. Seeking a philosophical freedom, Joy was only partially transformed through suffering, while the salesman found no transformation.[10]

Sara Hosey, in an article for Teaching American Literature, examined "Good Country People" from a perspective of disability. Hosey notes that when talking to the salesman, Joy states that she is 17, rather than her true age of 32, reflected her pretending to be a young woman, which has traditionally been viewed as dependent. The salesman also coerces her into the barn loft by suggesting she was unable to climb the ladder, leading to climbing to demonstrate her normalcy. After the salesman takes her glasses and false leg, Joy is then dependent due to her disability. By attempting to demonstrate her normalcy and independence, Joy is rendered dependent and her disability is emphasized.[11]

Hosey also compares Joy’s intelligence to a spiritual prosthetic, serving as a replacement for the lack of religiosity in her life. When the salesman tells her that "she ain't so smart", her philosophical basis is destroyed. In the book Mystery and Manners, O'Connor herself stated that Joy was "spiritually as well as physically crippled".[12]