The Paradox of Nothing within Flannery O’Connor’s Short...

Within Flannery O’Connor’s â€Å"Good Country People†, one would find many paradigms of imitations and foolishness and none of the â€Å"good country† personalities the title so tries to imply and uphold. This short story encompasses the lives of these false characters, each tried and fated within the hardship named life, but no retribution so necessary than Hulga’s. Her flamboyant distress of distinction and judgment alters her state of belief and turns it into an ironic form of Nihilism, or faith in nothing, bringing with it her ultimate calamity. First impression includes much of Hulga’s character, with her repugnant and discriminating air, so starts the most interesting nihilistic paradox. So indignant and frustrated, seemingly with others but truly with herself. Her shallow ways contradicting with the nature of her knowledge, failing to live up to easily the oldest philosophical admonitions in the history of time: â€Å"Know Thyself†. She exclaims constantly to Mrs. Freeman, â€Å"If you want me, here I am – LIKE I AM† but she is not simply who she is, she is an empty shell of false sophistication and ego. Her name change also explains much of her complex as â€Å"She saw it as the name of her highest creative act†. She may have changed it, yet allowed no one else to use it she didn’t very much know how to identify herself, â€Å"Hulga† is merely the idea of her highest ideal character, and in the end Hulga is the one that gets fooled. The irony embedded in her spirit is quit e high, since sheShow MoreRelatedANALIZ TEXT INTERPRETATION AND ANALYSIS28843 Words   |  116 PagesThe Elements of Plot When we refer to the plot of a work of fiction, then, we are referring to the deliberately arranged sequence of interrelated events that constitute the basic narrative structure of a novel or a short story. Events of any kind, of course, inevitably involve people, and for this reason it is virtually impossible to discuss plot in isolation from character. Character and plot are, in fact, intimately and reciprocally related, especially in modern fiction. A major function of plot