Although O'Connor preferred her work to be labeled “southern grotesque,” the grotesque is actually a feature of the southern gothic subgenre. Southern gothic typically involves stories featuring deeply flawed characters, so much so that readers may find them simultaneously revolting and riveting. In the case of “Good Country People,” Manley Pointer fits that description. He is a cruel sort of man, inclined to act aroused by physical deformities resulting in prostheses such as wooden legs and glass eyeballs. Masquerading as a devout Christian whose only goal is to spread the gospel, he is in reality a deceitful, despicable man. Southern gothic fiction also usually includes stereotypical figures like the falsely self-righteous, such as Mrs. Hopewell and Mrs. Freeman.
The grotesque also shows itself in the form of graphic violence or physical disfigurement, as in the case of Hulga. O'Connor's fiction tends to make the grotesque even more obvious because she often involves it in some sort of shocking twist of events. In “Good Country People,” Hulga has a wooden leg. That in itself is not grotesque but merely unfortunate. What makes the scene grotesque is the seductive way in which Manley Pointer removes the artificial limb and then reattaches it, his “face and his voice … entirely reverent.” As Hulga removes and replaces the wooden leg and then Manley follows suit, it is almost as if the two are engaged in sexual intercourse. While Hulga is imagining running away with the salesman and letting him take the leg off nightly, he is murmuring and becoming more forceful with her physically. Then he pulls out his valise, which once housed another woman's glass eye—a souvenir of a previous seduction—and now has a flask of whiskey, a deck of pornographic playing cards, and a box of condoms. It suddenly dawns on Hulga that this warped scene was something he created regularly, or at least whenever he could find a willing victim.
Most readers familiar with O'Connor's writing associate her name with irony, the technique of indicating—through plot development or character—an attitude or intention that is the exact opposite of what is actually stated or implied. “Good Country People” abounds with examples of irony. Characters' names, for instance, are ironic. Mrs. Freeman is not free at all, but a worker on a tenant farm. Nor is Mrs. Hopewell hopeful; she is distraught over her daughter's choices, behavior, and attitude. Joy is not joyful, and so she becomes Hulga. And Manley Pointer? The name Manley suggests he possesses the qualities of a man—virulent, chivalrous, virtuous—yet he is none of these.
O'Connor employs irony in her development of Hulga, upon whom she bestows a wealth of esoteric knowledge but virtually no real wisdom. She is by far the most intelligent character in the story, and yet she is the one who is the most severely manipulated and deceived. It is she who suffers and must ultimately find redemption.
Irony is also at play in the final scene with Mrs. Freeman and Mrs. Hopewell. Both women are digging up onions in the back pasture when they see Manley Pointer emerge from the woods in the direction of the highway. Mrs. Hopewell remarks that he is the “nice dull young man” who tried to sell her a Bible. “He was so simple,” she says. “But I guess the world would be better off if we were all that simple.” Mrs. Freeman gives her friend's comment a moment's thought and replies, “Some can't be that simple. I know I never could.” However, there they are, two women who hold themselves in such high esteem, completely ignorant of what went on right under their noses.
Upon first reading “Good Country People,” it is easy to miss O'Connor's dark humor. There is so much going on under the surface of this seemingly simple story, but the humor is there. O'Connor herself has been quoted as believing that the comic and the terrible may well be two sides of the same coin; to her mind, they are forever linked. The astute reader recognizes the author's humorous style in the first page of the story, as the two simple country women idly chat and gossip back and forth. So completely full of their own sense of morality and good Christian values—not to mention their belief in the superiority of their wisdom—the two cannot possibly be taken seriously by the reader.
Joy, who is much easier to relate to when thought of as the uglier-sounding Hulga because of her bleak and negative outlook on life, is treated with humor of a sarcastic nature. When she overhears her mother talking with Manley Pointer and the discussion turns to country people, who are the salt of the earth, Hulga cannot be bothered to be polite: “Get rid of the salt of the earth … and let's eat,” she tells her mother. O'Connor again relies on a sense of the absurd when she has Manley ask Hulga if she has ever eaten a two-day-old chick. Without hesitation, Hulga answers in the affirmative. Regardless of the era or the region or the circumstances, no one is likely to eat a two-day-old chicken. It is an absurd question, and one the salesman perhaps asks solely to gauge just how full of herself Hulga is.
Manley himself is treated with humor, foreshadowing that he is not who he seems to be. When he is first invited into Mrs. Hopewell's home, he is literally jerked forward into the parlor by the weight of his valise. This is a scene of slapstick comedy. Add to that the humor found in the fact that even though Mrs. Hopewell never likes to be made to look foolish, she is tricked into inviting Manley to stay for dinner. Already one can clearly see how manipulative he is, and Mrs. Hopewell “was sorry the instant she heard herself” offer the invitation.
Even the final scene, in the hayloft, is treated with dark humor despite the seriousness of its redemptive outcome. This is the scene where irony and gothicism meet head on to tackle the themes of faith and knowledge. Manley Pointer becomes forceful physically with Hulga, and it is evident that he is somehow aroused by her disfigurement. As the scene plays out, one can imagine it visually, and there is a comic effect to it, but with a very dark kind of humor that complements O'Connor's southern gothic style.