Brittany Lawrence
All the Good Country People “Been Believing in Nothing”
Founders Classical Academy
jfast@responsiveed.com
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All the Good Country People “Been Believing in Nothing”
Through her shocking tale “Good Country People,” Flannery O’Connor addresses the
distorted beliefs of two self-proclaimed intellectuals as they cross paths in the quiet countryside.
This is particularly interesting as O’Connor herself was an intellectual and actively shared her
convictions through her peculiar short stories and essays; even this shared characteristic does not,
however, seem to stop her from giving her intellectual characters a hard time in the story. In
“Good Country People,” she describes a peculiar conversation between an atheistic philosopher
named Hulga and a seemingly-innocent Bible salesman named Manley Pointer. At the end,
Pointer reveals that he does not actually sell Bibles, and neither believes in God nor holds
himself to any moral standard. In contrast, although Hulga originally thinks she shares Pointer’s
convictions that there is neither a God nor a moral standard by which to judge, by the end of the
story she realizes that she does in fact hold herself and others to a moral standard. The
intellectual ideas that there is no God and that morality does not exist lead to the tragicomic
outcome of the story as Manley Pointer, the seemingly-simple “blind believer” who signifies the
tragedy, reveals his ignobility, and Hulga, the self-proclaimed philosopher-atheist who
undergoes comedic transformation, experiences a revelation in which she discovers her belief in
God and morality; and reveals O’Connor’s own strong belief in God and Biblical morality.
One may ask why the author chose to write this tale in such a shocking manner as the
mode of conveying her convictions that God and, therefore, morality, exist. O’Connor herself
answered this question when she wrote, “The novelist with Christian concerns will find in
modern life distortions which are repugnant to him, and his problem will be to make these appear
as distortions to an audience which is used to seeing them as natural; and he may well be forced
to take ever more violent means to get his vision across to this hostile audience. When you can
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assume that your audience holds the same beliefs that you do, you can relax a little and use more
normal ways of talking to it; when you have to assume that it does not, then you have to make
your vision apparent by shock –to the hard of hearing you shout, and for the almost blind you
draw large and startling figures” (Mystery and Manners, 34). O’Connor clearly did not believe in
subtleties but instead held that one is not to hold back when making a statement about one’s
convictions. She found the lack of belief in God and morality that must have been prevalent in
her time and area so repugnant that she wrote neither sermon nor speech, but rather a story about
two intellectuals who appear to have contrasting convictions at the beginning and completely
switch intellectual ideas by the end, which would be, perhaps, entertaining to read and more
accessible to the everyday person as well as obvious in its message.
Manley Pointer’s confession that he does not believe in God is an intellectual tragedy as
he falls in the eyes of the reader from a simple but noble Christian boy to a vile, deceptive
atheist. At the beginning of “Good Country People,” everyone thinks that Pointer is a simple,
respectable country boy who wants to sell Bibles. He seems genuinely concerned that Mrs.
Hopewell does not have a Bible in her home, speaks about Christianity as though he actually
believes in it, and has extensive knowledge of Biblical principles. He claims that “for a
Chrustian, the word of God ought to be in every room in the house besides in his heart” (A Good
Man is Hard to Find, 187). It almost seems as though Pointer is being set up as the hero of the
story, and carries with him light into a home darkened by atheistic philosophy. His convictions
appear sincere and his deceit is certainly convincing. He plays his part so well that even by the
end of the story some people are still fooled: Mrs. Hopewell calls him “that nice dull young man
that tried to sell me a Bible,” and claims that “the world would be better off if we were all that
simple” (205). But at the end of the story, he reveals his true identity to Hulga. He seduces her,
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steals her leg, and says, “I hope you don’t think… I believe in that crap! I may sell Bibles but I
know which end is up and I wasn’t born yesterday and I know where I’m going” (204) when she
tries to stop him by appealing to his religious convictions. By completely dismissing the beliefs
that he previously displays, Pointer proves that he is a liar and deceived Hulga and her mother
just to get her leg. He even tells Hulga that she “ain’t so smart. I been believing in nothing ever
since I was born!’” (205). He regards Hulga as lesser than himself for holding the same standards
that he had previously professed, further adding to his vileness. In reality, Pointer is what Hulga
had claimed to be: an atheistic philosopher. He believes in “nothing” and his actions truly reflect
that: he has no qualms about deceiving Hulga’s mother or Hulga, and, in a way, mocks
Christians’ earnest beliefs in order to trick women into relinquishing to him what he desires.
Pointer was hiding his true convictions the whole time and, contrary to what everyone else
thought, he was an ignoble, lying thief. Pointer’s shift in professed intellectual ideas and
transition from honest Christian country boy to atheistic thief provides the tragic outcome of the
story as he ends an ignoble liar.
On the other hand, Hulga’s intellectual ideas actually cause her to end comically when
her encounter with Pointer opens her eyes to her hidden moral convictions. One might point out
that losing her leg is a physical tragedy, but she sacrifices one small physical tragedy to
experience a greater intellectual comedy. At first, her ignobility stems from the fact that she does
not think that she believes in morals because she has not had a revelation concerning such things;
her conversation with Pointer causes her to have that revelation which signifies her comic end.
At the beginning of the story, she decides to seduce him and change his idea of morality by
turning his remorse and shame into “something useful,” because, to her, shame is unnecessary, as
it carries moral implications which, according to her, do not exist. Hulga wants to drag Pointer,
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whom she thinks has moral standards, into her life of amorality. She tells him that she thinks “we
are all damned…but some of us have taken off our blindfolds and see that there’s nothing to see.
It’s a kind of salvation” (200). For Hulga, there is nothing to believe in, so morality does not
actually exist. She thinks that by “knowing” this, she is somehow more free than her mother or
Pointer, who are both “good country people” and Bible-believing folk. She constantly argues
with her mother over intellectual ideas and scoffs at her mother, their neighbors, and Pointer, and
what she deems their blind, unintelligent ideas. By seducing Pointer, she believes she can take
off his blindfolds and free him from the religious shackles that she thinks have been restraining
him from living a liberated life. By the end of the story, though, she changes her mind. When the
tables turn and Pointer tries to seduce her, she tries to dissuade him by appealing to his feigned
Christian morals: “‘You’re a Christian!’ she hissed. ‘You’re a fine Christian! You’re just like
them all –say one thing and do another. You’re a perfect Christian’” (204). Even though she
claims not to believe in anything, Hulga still expects Christians to abide by their morals and
discovers that she actually values morals as well. This revelation of the intellectual belief in
morality is the comic outcome of the story as Hulga is elevated in the eyes of the reader.
In “Good Country People,” O’Connor takes two repugnant distortions in the form of
Hulga and Manley Pointer’s intellectual ideas and uses them to determine the tragicomic
outcome of the story by changing both characters’ convictions so that Pointer ends tragically and
Hulga ends comically. At the beginning, Hulga is the ignoble philosopher, and Pointer appears to
be the noble Christian. By the end, however, they switch both convictions and status: Pointer
reveals his disbelief in God, lack of morality, and ignobility, and Hulga realizes her value for
morality which allows her a semi-noble end. Pointer’s ploy as innocent country boy falls apart
and he openly admits his disbelief, which signifies his tragic end while Hulga ends with in an
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intellectual comedy when she abandons her own disbelief in exchange for the realization that she
does believe in morality. Pointer falls from nobility in the opinion of the reader and Hulga rises
to noble status after her revelation. It is their intellectual convictions which allow them to be
used by their intellectual author to make clear to all her readers, whether attentive or not, her
message that there is a God and a morality to which all are held.
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Works Cited
O'Connor, Flannery. "Good Country People." A Good Man Is Hard to Find and Other Stories.
New York, NY: Mariner, n.d. 177-205. Print.
O’Connor, Flannery. Mystery & Manners: Occasional Prose. New York: Farrar, Straus, &
Giroux, 1957. Print.