Joseph Nied
An Empty Struggle
Cistercian Preparatory School
gnied@cistercian.org
An Empty Struggle
Flannery O’Connor’s short story “Good Country People” sets out to criticize, and even
satirize, the intellectual nihilist’s struggle to comprehend reality. Nihilism had been popularized
by philosophers, scientists, and artists since the eighteenth century, and by the twentieth century
it had become part of the popular consciousness as O’Connor was well aware: “If you live today,
you breathe in nihilism,” she states in Habit of Being, a collection of her letters, “In or out of the
Church, it’s the gas you breathe.” In “Good Country People” O’Connor reveals how inaccurate
the modern “intellectual’s” understanding of the implications of nihilism are. Hulga’s
uneducated adversary Manley Pointer proves to be more of a nihilist than she is, because he
lacks her “enlightened” ideals. Through Hulga’s disillusioning encounter with Manley Pointer,
the reader sees that there is nothing particularly useful or noble about a belief in “nothing.”
Nihilism not only denies God’s existence but also asserts that there is no cultural value to
belief in God; this philosophy, as it developed, took on different intellectual forms. Romantic
poets of the early 19th century such as Percy Shelley and John Keats could be extremely direct in
their questioning of God’s existence. Shelley once said, “God is a hypothesis, and, as such,
stands in need of proof.” The Romantics did praise the beauty and power of nature, but they did
not see the origin of these qualities in God. Like the modern writer Douglas Adam said, “Isn’t it
enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the
bottom of it too?”
With Darwin’s 1859 On the Origin of Species, nature became a terrifying place of mutation
and brutality. As unappealing as that sounds, the book’s scientific logic persuaded many people,
and they began to believe that such a violent world, which appeared to be determined by
mechanisms inherent in nature, precluded the possibility of a creator god.
Given this intellectual culture, Friedrich Nietzsche’s proclamation “God is dead” was easier
to accept. Nietzsche could see that the great Old Testament God of the flood, of the plagues, and
of ancient prophecies was absent from the superficial worship of the Christians of his day, and
his writings seemed to reflect the Darwinian idea of the evolutionary struggle of nature. In his
1883 book Thus Spake Zarathustra: A Book for All and None, Nietzsche detailed the teachings of
the fictional Persian Zarathustra, who preaches of new human values while condemning
traditional virtues such as mercy and compassion. His new virtues are based upon man’s intrinsic
desire for power and upon the truth of God’s non-existence. Nietzsche’s prophet also predicts the
inevitable rise of the Ubermensch, the overman, who will transcend conventional human values
and attain a new, higher state of being. Undoubtedly, in such writings lies the inspiration for
Hulga’s beliefs and aspirations.
Because of the writings of these great thinkers, the world discovered that nihilism was artistic
and beautiful, it was scientific and logical, and it even had philosophical appeal, holding great
promise for humanity’s progress. So it comes as no surprise that O’Connor, a Catholic scholar
and fiction author who was well aware of these writings, should attempt to effectively counter
and undermine them through stories such as “Good Country People.”
In O’Connor’s fiction, the characters do not allegorically represent philosophical positions.
They are truly human characters who attempt to live their lives according to certain ideals. What
was it that led Hulga to adopt a nihilistic philosophy? The story seems to indicate that her
interest in nihilism was not purely philosophical but psychological. Through Hulga’s interactions
with Mrs. Hopewell, her mother, we can see that Hulga is a very emotional person and highly
dislikes her closed-minded mother’s pity and lack of introspection. During the story, we rarely
ever find Hulga truly happy. Every time she enters a room, she slumps over, and like a child
throwing a tantrum, she stomps about with her wooden leg: “She could walk without making the
awful noise but she made it- Mrs.Hopewell was certain- because it was ugly sounding” (CS,
275). And of course, her name itself serves as a means of rebellion against her mother, whose
inflexible mind refuses to accept Hulga for who she really is: “One of her major triumphs was
that her mother had not been able to turn her dust into Joy, but the greater one that she had been
able to turn it herself into Hulga” (CS, 275). Having had her leg shot off and being only ten years
away from certain death, she has plenty of reasons to be disappointed with the hand life had dealt
her. It’s because of this emotional trauma and the distaste for her mother’s empty support that
she turns to the nihilistic philosophers. She seeks solace and purpose outside of her mother’s
empty and clichéd Christianity; she begins to forge and embrace a more sincere and, what she
believes, a more hopeful reality.
When Manley Pointer enters the story, Hulga immediately desires to take advantage of his
religious sincerity. Hulga puts her Nietzschean morals to work, “she imagined . . . she very easily
seduced him and then, of course, she had to reckon with his remorse. . . True genius can get an
idea across to even an inferior mind. She imagined that she took his remorse in hand and
changed it into a deeper understanding of life. She took all his shame and turned it into
something useful” (CS, 284). She believes she can take Pointer’s Christianity away and enlighten
him with the truth she’s discovered in her studies. We see a little more into her beliefs as she
soon tells Pointer, “I’m one of those people who can see through to nothing. . . some of us have
taken off our blindfolds and see that there is nothing to see. It’s a kind of salvation” (CS, 287).
Flannery O’Connor then employs irony to show us just how blind Hulga has actually made
herself. When “poor baby” Manley Pointer removes her leg, her superiority and strength leave
her, and she is defenseless. Pointer can then easily accomplish his thievery, and she’s left without
her leg and without her control. Of course, in such vulgar circumstances one’s emotions would
be going haywire. However, for Hulga it’s not just the shock of finding that Pointer, the dumb
and Christian “good country person” is a con-man, it’s the fact that the philosophy she’s spent
years contemplating, developing, and ultimately betting her short life upon have just failed her.
Her belief that nihilism is something that makes her enlightened, powerful, and basically
immune to danger is proven completely false. Pointer is not the “good country” person he
appears to be; in fact, it becomes apparent that all of the characters in the story are fundamentally
atheist--even Mrs. Hopewell whose lack of faith is revealed in her conversation with Pointer: “‘I
keep my Bible by my bedside.’ This was not the truth. It was in the attic somewhere” (CS, 278).
O’Connor’s statement that nihilism is the gas the world breathes is reflected here, and it’s ironic
that the only explicitly nihilist character finds that the other characters are the true embodiments
of nihilism: Mrs.Hopewell’s lack of interest in God, truth, and understanding of her own nature
and Pointer’s unintelligent and immoral “You ain’t so smart. I been believing in nothing ever
since I was born! (CS, 291)”
This ending is a revelation for the reader, because it portrays what Nietzsche saw, what
O’Connor saw, and what Hulga discovered: that even where we least expect it, nihilism lies
within all of us. “Good Country People” seems to demonstrate, despite the claims of Nietzsche
and other philosophers, that nihilism isn’t the result of progress or another step in the evolution
of mankind; rather, it is simply a form of spiritual bankruptcy. O’Connor is telling us that no
matter how much we want this philosophy to impact and revolutionize society, solve all of its
problems, and give us what we’ve been searching for in our hearts, nothingness is nothingness.
And the supposedly “nihilistic intellectuals” are simply “wishing to know nothing of nothing.”
Works Cited
Wood, Ralph C. Flannery O'Connor and the Christ-haunted South. Grand Rapids, MI: William
B. Eerdmans Pub., 2004. Print.
Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm, and Heinrich Mann. The Essential Nietzsche. Mineola, NY: Dover
Publications, 2006. Print.
O'Connor, Flannery, and Sally Fitzgerald. The Habit of Being: Letters. New York: Farrar, Straus,
Giroux, 1979. Print.