Feminism and historicism play a major role in Flannery O'Connor's short story, "Good Country People," first published in 1955. The story focuses on the importance of identity and the parallels between truth and deception. In "Good Country People", the Hopewell family maintains a small farm in rural Georgia with the help of tenants the Freemans. The pious Mrs. Hopewell's mottos "nothing is perfect" and "it takes all kinds to create the world" are manifested in her thirty-two-year-old unmarried daughter, Joy, who later changes her name to Hulga, bears a prosthetic wooden leg due to a childhood accident. Hulga who holds a Ph.D. in philosophy, cannot advance his academic aspirations because of a weak heart; because of this, she has to live in her childhood home with her mother. Regardless of her upbringing, Hulga's mother thinks her daughter is completely absurd; Hulga's real flaw is that she ignores her surroundings. She personally finds her mother and Mrs. Freeman's faith foolish because she considers it inauthentic. Mrs. Hopewell and Hulga first trust the traveling Bible salesman, Manley Pointer, who visits the farm; both believe it comes from "good country people", but quickly learn that this is not the case. The feminist element is a dominant theme in all of Flannery O'Connor's works; it is imperative to note however that O'Connor did not want to be easily identified as a feminist, she wanted her characters not to deny their femininity but to "exploit" it sometimes to the point of parody (Smith 35); she wanted her readers to “give credit” to her characters for “employing clever strategy to try to survive in a man’s world” (Smith 35). With this, O'Connor inspires her readers to not only have compassion for...... middle of paper ...... that there is not much that separates her "it seemed to Mrs. Hopewell that every year [Joy/Hulga] grew up less and less like the others and more and more like herself – bloated, crude, and shady" (O'Connor 154) does not seem to separate mother and daughter. daughter, but unify them to share the same destiny. Works Cited Desmond, John F. “Flannery O'Connor and the Symbol” Logos: A Journal of Catholic Thought and Culture 5.2 (2002): 143-56. . Schaum, Melita "Erasing Angel: The Lucifer. -Trickster Figure in Flannery O'Connor's Short Fiction." The Southern Literary Journal 33.1 (Fall 2000): 1-26. Print. Smith, Peter A. “Flannery O’Connor’s Empowered Women.” The Southern Literary Journal 26.2 (Spring, 1994): 35-47. Printed. Westling, Louise. “Mothers and Daughters of Flannery O'Connor. » Literature of the twentieth century 24.4 (winter, 1978) : 510-22..