People must be comfortable with every aspect of themselves, because certain people, who in this story are represented by Manley Pointer’s character, can easily exploit their weaknesses. He is “good country people” and “the salt of the earth” as Mrs. Hopewell refers to him. But he is really a demon that they must face. A demon to remind them of their weaknesses.

Beginning with Mrs. Hopewell, the title of the story comes from what she likes to call the poorer and less fortunate people that live off the land and work their whole lives just to hang on to some scrap of a life. This is how she views these people. She believes that they are good count

ry people not a bad seed among them and that are all eager to help out and bow in humility to the upper class. The gullible nature of Mrs. Hopewell betrays her true vision of a situation. She is one of those people who are all goody-goody to people who they view as less fortunate. She’s a person that commends or speaks for the people she knows nothing about. Altogether this is her true weakness that is taken advantage of by Manley Pointer. One of Mrs. Hopewell's favorite sayings, "Nothing is perfect", is seen in the very beginning of the story. The quote acts as foreshadowing for what her attitude towards life will be. We later find out that she is right, but that she does not live by her saying. Manley Pointer exploits this weakness as soon as she opened her door. He shows up as a pathetic bible salesman with an ailing heart, which is coincidentally exactly what Hulga has. He lays the old guilt trip on Mrs. Hopewell on how no one wants to deal with a simple country boy like himself, he attacks her weakness right at the heart of it. Not more than two minutes after he knocked on the door, he ends up eating dinner with them and at the conclusion is even invited to return any time he feels like it. Just by the way he acts prevents Mrs. Hopewell blinds from being suspicious of Manley. At the end of the story, we see that Mrs. Hopewell is still clouded by her weakness and refers to Manley as simple as he passes through a field by Mrs. Hopewell and Mrs. Freeman.

Manley is the only character in the story that has no apparent weakness. Taking into consideration the religious theme within the story, he takes on a persona of a devil-like character. He seems to be an almost omniscient character, which would fall in line with a powerful type of being. Being th

Some topics in this essay:
Manley Pointer, Manley Manley, Hopewell Hulga, Beginning Hopewell, Freemen Hopewell, People” Religion, Pointer Hulga, Manley Pointer’s, Pointer Hopewell's, manley pointer, Flannery O’Connor’s, “good country, country people”, “good country people”, character story, characters story, devil-like character, education self-absorption, feels control,