Flannery O' Connor

It's only been three days since we've been back from winter break but
it seems like it's already been 3 months. We didn't do much on the first AP Literature class back
from break and started real work on Friday. We had our first discussion on the second
day of school and it was on a short story by Flannery O' Connor called Good Country 
People. I really enjoyed reading this short story. I thought that it got more interesting
towards the end. A thing that I didn't get until the end was the role of Manley. I didn't
know that he was only using Joy and the love they shared wasn't true. Because of the lack
of time we had in class, we weren't able to go in depth with the discussion questions.
I want to write some of the ideas that I wasn't able to share during the discussion on Friday.
First of all, i think that what Hulga means when she says to her mother,
"Do you ever look inside and see what you are not?" (pg. 23) is that she knows that
her mother is being "fake" and untrue to herself. She deceives herself and others and acts
to be some kind of wonderful and sweet lady. This is why she also lies to the Bible
salesman, Manley, and says that she has a Bible by her bedside when she does not.
I also thought that the fact that Joy changed her name to Hulga was very strange.
It surprised me that she would change her name to make it one of the most unappealing
name she can change it to. Although she was hurt because of her leg and didn't think
that the name Joy fit her, why would she make herself hurt even more by creating
a name like that?
Even though I really enjoyed the story, I thought it had the most random ending ever.
It didn't make sense that Manley would take away Hulga's artificial leg for no reason.
I think it would have been a much happier ending if they ended up together, Hulga
having lived so miserably all her life. :( (Although I still think the age difference was gross)
A question that still remains is why did Manley take her artificial leg? Why does he
collect these kind of stuff from people? The author didn't tell us the purpose of this which
I didn't like because I like clear endings. But on the other hand, I liked the fact
that there was that twist at the end. If they ended happily ever after, there wouldn't
be much to the story and the title of the story wouldn't have much significance.
It's just that if feel so bad for Hulga, left by herself without her leg and even her glasses,
played by a man whom she finally opened her heart to.
First few days of school has been so long. Thank goodness there's no school on Monday! :)