The grotesque tends to print some very strong images on our minds, doesn’t it? How strong is scene when Mr. Niceguy removes Hulga’s leg and hits the dust? It is genious. There’s no other time in the SS when Hulga is so “Hulga” and not “Joy” as she is at the end.

To sum it up some funny blatant naïveté. Feels like “humor negro”. You know it’s not very nice, but it’s also kind of hard not laugh when the people around you at the moment of the joke are not affected by the subject. Even harder not laugh if we try to imagine Mrs. Hopewell’s face when saying “the world would be better off if we were all that simple”.

Fantastic SS.

+ planned stealing Hulga’s wooden leg.

+ stole her glasses

+ pretends to be virtuous, but his suitcase contained “a pocket flash of whiskey, a pack of cards, and a small blue box with printing” inside a Bible.

– Joy/Hulga wooden leg and her obsession with the ugly; also there is her superiority/inferiority complex. Her name could represent positive values, but her changing it is significant in the opposite way.

– Manley Pointer is a bizarre stealer of prosthetic devices, disguised as a bible salesman; as said in comment #27, his name could be a reference to manhood and falic symbols (which would be antagonistic towards Hulga superior behavior).

– “Good country people” can be either naive (in reference to country people in general) or presumptuous (related specifically to American Southern people) and even deceivers (as Pointer).

– At first, we tend to think bad of Hulga, but in the end there is almost sympathy for her destiny.

Joy/ Hulga>

We may consider this name Joy a paradox, because the one thing this woman didn´t seem to have was joy. She dedicated her life to her studies. Indeed, she gave much value to her inteligence, to her “brain”.

“Joy was (Mrs. Hopewell´s) her daughter, a large blond girl who had an artificial leg (…) she was thirty-two years old and highly educated (…). She was brilliant (…). The girl had taken the Ph.D. in philosophy (…)”.

Or maybe she didn´t know how to achieve joy once she had a physical problem.

“The poor stout girl in her thirties who had never danced a step or had any normal good times”.

These facts seem to be the reason for having changed her name to Hulga, a name that gives us quite the opposite idea. It gives an idea of something hard, strong, and ugly. That is, something not feminine, then not attractive.

“Her name was really Joy but as soon as she was twenty-one and away from home, she had had it legally changed. Mrs. Hopewell was certain that she had thought and thought until she had hit upon the ugliest name in any language (…). When Mrs. Hopewell thought the name, Hulga, she thought of the broad blank hull of a battleship”.

Nevertheless, her “sterile” condition had started to change since she was first kissed by Manley Pointer, who stands as the symbol of virility that could take Hulga from her emptiness and make her have/ become Joy. Then, her mutation was consecrated when Manley takes off her artifitial leg. Hence she couldn´t see things with the aid of her brain anymore.

“The kiss (…) produced that extra surge of adrenalin in the girl (…), in her the power went at once to the brain. Even before he released her, her mind, clear and detached and ironic anyway, was regarding him from (…). She had never been kissed before and she was pleased to discover that it was an unexceptional experience and all a matter of the mind’s control”.

So, until then she was too skeptical, denying her feelings and using her mind to hold “the unknown” behind. From now on, without her artifitial leg, she has lost her self-control.

“Her mind, throughout this, never stopped or lost itself for a second to her feelings (…). Without the leg she felt entirely dependent on him. Her brain seemed to have stopped thinking altogether and to be about some other function that it was not very good at”.

Mrs. Freeman>

We can think that such name stands for a woman who had few ways of expressing herself (only three) – so she was plain:

“Besides the neutral expression that she wore when she was alone, Mrs. Freeman had two others, forward and reverse, that she used for all her human dealings”.

It stands for a woman who was noisy and reacted instantly when displeased:

“(she) was the nosiest woman ever to walk the earth. She’s got to be into everything”.

It also stands for a woman who came from the countryside, who lived a simple life, “free” from the bonds established by the modern society. If we consider these aspects, we may see her as a free woman: who seemed to feel free to speak, to react, and to behave.

“Mrs. Freeman always managed to arrive at some point during the meal and to watch them finish it”.

Mrs. Hopewell>

This name alludes to the idea of someone who seems to expect good thingd from others. A person who is able to see good in bad. For this purpose, one has to be patient.

“(Mrs. Hopewell) she was a woman of great patience”.

Although Mrs. Freeman´s daughters didn´t seem to be the model of good girls, Mrs. Hopewell used to say good things about them. Despite being from the countryside, Mrs. Freeman was pointed as a lady by Mrs. Hopewell.

“(Mrs. Freeman’s daughters) Glynese, a redhead, was eighteen and had many admirers; Carramae, a blonde, was only fifteen but already married and pregnant (…). Mrs. Hopewell liked to tell people that Glynese and Carramae were two of the finest girls she knew and that Mrs. Freeman was a lady and that she was never ashamed to take her anywhere or introduce her to anybody they might meet”.

Therefore, Mrs. Hopewell behaved in a surprinsing way for she believed in or accepted things that people would reject. She was optimistic.

“Mrs. Hopewell had no bad qualities of her own but she was able to use other people’s in such a constructive way that she had kept them four years (…). Mrs. Hopewell said that people who looked on the bright side of things would be beautiful even if they were not”.

At the same time, she was a realistic person.

“Nothing is perfect. This was one of Mrs. Hopewell’s favorite sayings. Another was: that is life! And still another, the most important, was: well, other people have their opinions too (…). “Everybody is different,” Mrs. Hopewell said”.

… to be continued …

I see many different things and concepts in this ss, although I think the most present issue is the eternal conflict between good and evil. I’ve read this in many places and for most obvious it may appear I think it proceeds absolutely.
The question is who’s evil and who’s good, and that’s where the grotesque goes… along with all this idea of the country and the South itself. So in the end, it’s all about being careful with whom you trust. It brings this realistic sensation of never knowing people’s true nature. Appearance, social labels, breeding, origin… nothing’s ever enough to make us trust someone nowadays, and I think the story brings a lot of this modern jungle we’re living in bog cities and stuff. Cliché I know… but that’s true I think.

We can see the grotesque in this ss in many levels:

The attitude of writing about a girl with a wooden leg and all this thing of being deceived by the “God guy” who sells bibles is grotesque in itself. Joy is grotesque. Stealing a leg is grotesque. Having an artificial leg is grotesque (in a sense of being different).

Concerning the names, I’d like to call attention to Joy’s sisters:

“By the time Joy came in, they had usually finished the weather report and were on one or the other of Mrs. Freeman’s daughters, Glynese or Carramae. Joy called them Glycerin and Caramel. Glynese, a redhead, was eighteen and had many admirers; Carramae, a blonde, was only fifteen but already married and pregnant.”

Glycerin and caramel (everybody sticks in them?)… one had many admirers the other was only fifteen and was married and pregnant.

I was wondering, also, if couldn’t we relate this plot with a conflict between North and South… I don’t know, perhaps the lesson Joy takes out of what she passed through is the same lesson the South took (or still takes) out of what it passed through (or still passes) in the past. I mean, it’s oppressed background and stuff.

Anyway, mates.
That’s it.

Cheers.

On the characters:

Hopewell is a contradiction herself. She is the one who behaves really “understanding” with everything in life and at the same time she doesnt know how to handle with her daughter.

Joy/Hulga- Is a niilist and a believer- She claims that she is a skeptical person but in the end she surrenders herself to trusting Manley Pointer ( what a falic name!!!)
She becomes exactly what she judges about Christian people: a paradox.

The narrative itself behaves like that:”the story’s tone shifts from trust and innocence to panic and alarm.”
Its already grotesque by the way it is told.
Im not sure if this story has a real purpose… but it doesnt really need to have one … cause this is point in itself : sometimes life balances itself and sometimes is completely unbalanced… We as readers contradict ourselves while reading it… First we believe Joy is a ‘bitch’ .. and then she becomes Hulga – the victim – we feel her pain, still it is a little funny though cruel.

1st to higlight: The naive behaviour of Mrs. Hopewell, she thinks country people are always to be trusted, naming the SS after that. Her name is quite interesting too, Hope + Well, she truly believes Joy/Hulga would “wake up” to reality one day.

2nd one: The Bible salesman: His description is grotesque! How someone in a “bright blue suit and yellow socks that were not pulled up far enough” cannot be ridiculous?! “I’m just a country boy.” Bah! He’s full of second intentions.

3rd one: The protagonist, the tall stupid woman, who thought she could challenge anyone in any subject and make fun of them….naive just like his mother, and atheist just like the country guy. She is grotesque in every sense of the word, there’s no “salvation” for someone like her, too late for that.

The epiphany is in the ironic title, according to Mrs. Hopewell, they’re “good” as long as you don’t face them.

Another thing, according to the story Joy suffered no pain nor lost her consciousness when her REAL leg was blasted off, but when Pointer ran away with her artificial thing, she was hopeless, cool isn’t it? the mother is hopewell and the daugther is hopeless.