"Good Country People"

The effect of the phrase “good country people” is that it encourages the reader to perceive “country people” as being harmless and genuine. O’Connor paints a picture of Mrs. Freeman as being part of this stereotype. She maintains her responsibilities without complaint, and she is an honest person. However, she has a flaw. Her flaw is that she needs to be in everyone’s business. This “flaw” foreshadows the event in which the reader recognizes that “good country people” is just a saying, with little meaning. Manley Pointer, who claims to be like Mrs. Freeman, is under guise to collect what he can from the wealthy. He poses as an innocent Bible seller, only to trick Joy (Hulga) into taking her prosthetic leg off so that he can add it to his collectables. He claims not even to be a Christian. The morale of he story here seems to be that people do not always fit a stereotype. They can put on a facade if it benefits them - it is out of ignorance that people choose to overlook this. 

Joy, with her Ph.D and many years of education, is even fooled. She seems to pride herself in her intelligence, but this pride is actually wrapped up in her leg. When her leg is removed, she no longer feels superior. However, the irony here is that her leg used to be a source of shame, whereas it becomes a source of reassurance. When Pointer runs off with it, she is once again stripped of the reassurance she felt about herself and her existence. Because of these events, O’Connor presents the cliched, but universal message, that one can not be too sure about anything, or anyone, in life, regardless of how they are portrayed.