Flannery O’Connor’s Good Country People, published in 1955, is a short story set in the farms of rural Georgia. It deals with the tendency of people to deceive others by putting on a mask to hide their true forms; such a phenomenon is one that anyone can see for themselves by just researching the hidden backgrounds of politicians. O’Connor was a devout Roman Catholic, and thus included religious themes in her fictional works, Not only that, O’Connor was also a strong apologist for the Catholic faith (Gordon). Given that her faith was extremely important to her, it seems as if she was trying to make a point in Good Country People about the importance of religion and morality. She knocks around and alludes to “the belief in nothing” at different parts in the story Nihilism, or, the “belief in nothing,” rejects all religious principles, and often says that life is meaningless.
The religious beliefs of each character in the story strongly affects their personality and the things they choose to do. The devoutly religious people in the story seem to be “better” people, for lack of a better word The two characters that have the most moral downfalls are the ones who admit to believing in nothing. Hulga says plainly to the Bible salesman that she does not believe in a god. She changed her name from Joy, an attractive name, to Hulga, an ugly name, specifically to spite her mother, Mrs, Hopewell. The story continually describes Hulga as rude. She is clearly narcissistic, she believes she is superior to others because of her university degrees and supposed intellectual preeminence, The Bible salesman is a manipulative sexual deviant who, at the end of the story, clearly states that he believes in nothing.
Throughout the entire story, he puts on a mask of lies, pretending to be a servant of God by selling Bibles and having deep religious discussions with the people he manages to snare. His intricate front as some kind of missionary exists specifically to further his sexual deviance. He seems to have a fetish for prosthetic body parts, and ends up stealing them from people by deceiving them into thinking he is doing God’s will [FlaSS]. He pretends to be a devout Christian for the purpose of influencing others into his trap without even realizing it, Through the telling of the story, O‘Connor seems to emphasize the assertion that a god is required for absolute morality, Nihilism tends to reject objective morality, as it sometimes stresses that there is nothing supernatural or non-physical. Absolute morality cannot exist without a spiritual force driving it Atheists who argue that morality is purely subjective often fail to understand the theist’s perspective.
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From the perspective of some theists, morality is something divine, and cannot be made less than divine, or anything other than divine, The belief in absolute morality is something that is not based on rationale, it is based on divinity O’Connor appears to be saying, “Look what happened to these people when they threw out objective morality,” The morally depraved individuals in the story felt no guilt for what they did because of their nihilism, If someone believes that morality is entirely subjective, they can do something horrid while maintaining the idea that what they are doing is not objectively wrong. They believe that the notion that what they are doing is wrong is something totally subjective When someone has a pre-existing conviction that something is wrong, but that individual chooses todo it anyway, they tend to feel guilty.
The idea of relative morality allows for someone to be able to do things that are clearly horrible, yet, also for that person to be able to believe that those things are not factually, objectively, absolutely, and completely wrong, regardless of anyone’s opinion, Though O’Connor was Catholic, the characters in her story did not seem to be Catholic, Most people in rural Georgia in 1955 were not Catholic, they were some branch of Protestantr Your stereotypical southern “good country person” was a Baptist and rejected the idea that Catholics were authentic Christiansi It is possible that O’Connor wanted to express this message about morality while making it relatable to the populous around her. They would read it, and think, “Hey, this family is like mine, they live in a place like] do,” She could express her message about morality and deception more easily if she made the characters relatable.
O’Connor demonstrated her underlying message — the idea that God is required for absolute morality ~ very effectively. The main theme of the story focuses more on deception and masquerading as a false persona, however, it does deal with nihilism along with the deception. The two ideas of deception and nihilism seem to go hand in hand and correlate with each other. The morally corrupted people in the story are the ones who hold the view of nihilismi Their actions are excusable under the umbrella of nihilism, under the belief that absolute morality does not exist Without objective morality, anything is acceptable Nihilism, which rejects factual moral principles, makes way for anything to be allowable. O’Connor combats this idea by showing what would happen to people who reject moral principles and who “believe in nothing.”
