Good Country People: Irony 4 key examples

In an example of dramatic irony, Hulga tells the Bible Salesman in their first conversation that she is 17 years old, while readers know that she is 32. The irony comes across in the following passage:

“How old are you?” [the Bible Salesman] asked softly.

She waited some time before she answered. Then in a flat voice she said, “Seventeen.”

His smiles came in succession like waves breaking on the surface of a little lake. “I see you got a wooden leg,” he said. “I think you’re real brave. I think you’re real sweet.”

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In an example of situational irony, the educated and atheistic Hulga believes that she will help the uneducated and religious Bible Salesman develop a “deeper understanding of life,” only to herself come to a deeper (and semi-religious) understanding of life during an intimate moment with him.

The following passage—which comes after the Bible Salesman tells Hulga that he sees how she “ain’t like anybody else”—captures the ironic spiritual transformation that Hulga experiences in this moment:

There was nothing about her face or her round freezing-blue eyes to indicate that this had moved her; but she felt as if her heart had stopped and left her mind to pump her blood. She decided that for the first time in her life she was face to face with real innocence. This boy, with an instinct that came from beyond wisdom, had touched the truth about her. When after a minute, she said in a hoarse high voice, “All right,” it was like surrendering to him completely. It was like losing her own life and finding it again, miraculously, in his.

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The end of the story is an example of dramatic irony because Hulga and readers know that the Bible Salesman is a manipulative con man who has stolen Hulga’s artificial leg, but Mrs. Hopewell and Mrs. Freeman do not. The irony comes across in the final paragraphs of the story, as the two women watch the Bible Salesman walk away from the barn where he has (unknowingly to them) abandoned Hulga:

“Why, that looks like that nice dull young man that tried to sell me a Bible yesterday,” Mrs. Hopewell said, squinting. “He must have been selling them to the Negroes back there. He was so simple,” she said, “but I guess the world would be better off if we were all that simple.”

Mrs. Freeman’s gaze drove forward and just touched him before he disappeared under the hill. […] “Some can’t be that simple,” she said. “I know I never could.”

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The title of “Good Country People” is an example of verbal irony. This is because, while many characters in the story are described as “good country people,” none of them actually are. As readers learn over the course of the story, all of the characters treat one another with condescension or cruelty (or, at the very least, think unkind thoughts about one another), making them far from simple and “good” country people.

The following passage—in which the Bible Salesman reveals to Hulga that he is a seedy con man—captures the irony of the phrase “good country people” being applied to him:

The boy was unscrewing the top of the flask. He stopped and pointed, with a smile, to the deck of cards. It was not an ordinary deck but one with an obscene picture on the back of each card. “Take a swig,” he said, offering her the bottle first. He held it in front of her, but like one mesmerized, she did not move.

Her voice when she spoke had an almost pleading sound. “Aren’t you,” she murmured, “aren’t you just good country people?”

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