Good Country People

The names in “Good Country People” all have some symbolic resonance, particularly those chosen by the characters. Hulga changing her name from Joy is the clearest example: by abandoning a name that had happy connotations for one that sounds ugly and reminds her of a Vulcan fire god, she is asserting a new identity for herself that feels explicitly designed to be in opposition to her mother’s hopes for her. That their surname is Hopewell is another allusion to the disconnect between Mrs. Hopewell’s ideas about the family and their reality as two people who live in discontent and make false assumptions about each other and the people around them. Hulga chose her name to be a kind of cudgel against the world, but she finds that Mrs. Freeman’s use of it feels like it’s being turned against her, suggesting that her attempt to redefine herself is worthy of mockery (much like she mocks Mrs. Freeman’s daughters by referring to them as Glycerine and Caramel, indicating her belief that they are sickly-sweet).

Manley Pointer has also taken on an assumed name that gives away who he really is: a puerile young man who has named himself after a phallus.