Question

Read the excerpt from “Good Country People.” Mrs. Hopewell, who had divorced her husband long ago, needed someone to walk over the fields with her; and when Joy had to be impressed for these services, her remarks were usually so ugly and her face so glum that Mrs. Hopewell would say, “If you can’t come pleasantly, I don’t want you at all,” to which the girl, standing square and rigid-shouldered with her neck thrust slightly forward, would reply, “If you want me, here I am—LIKE I AM.” Based on Mrs. Hopewell’s attitude toward the fields, it is reasonable to infer that the story takes place

Answer 1

Mary Flannery O’Connor was an American writer, she wrote two important novels, “Wise Blood” and “The Violent Bear it Away”, and many short stories.

The “Good Country People” novel tells the story of an old woman and her daughter. Mrs. Hopewell has one daughter, Joy, who changed her name to Hulga to make herself more unappealing and to infuriate her mother. Hulga is a woman with a bad heart, a wooden leg, and has never been in love. Still, Mrs. Hopewell and Mrs. Freeman have a subtle rivalry about their success in raising their daughters to be good, country people. A Bible salesman named Manley Pointer, visits the family and is invited for dinner despite the Hopewells' lack of interest in purchasing Bibles. Mrs. Hopewell believes Manley is "good country people." While leaving the home, Pointer invites Joy for a picnic date the next evening, and she imagines seducing the innocent Bible salesman.

The general idea of the novel is that of a stranger who arrives to the lives of two women and provokes a change in their lives.

The most likely setting for the novel is:

A farm in a barren area of Georgia.

Answer 2

After reading this excerpt it seems to me that the story takes place in a deserted town in which mysterious events occur. Some points of the plot also lead me to this answer, as most of actions and events in this story were represented in an abandoned town with strange ad weird things people may come across if they once come to the town.