A Roll in the Hay
... As pointed out when she states “like the ugly sweating Vulcan who stayed in the furnace and to whom, presumably, the gods had to come when called” (183). Next, she has convinced herself that no one in her present surroundings can possibly understand her, that only if she where in “a university lecturing to people” (184) could she possibly be comprehended. In other words, O’Connor has painted the portrait of the main protagonist as a person damned into her current station in life and cursed with the ability to “see through to nothing” (191). Next is Joy/Hulga’s encounter with Manley Pointer, a seemingly simple minded and gentle natured young man who behaves as though smitten by her, and for this reason she decides to take away his naivety. O’Connor slips the reader into Joy/Hulga’s mind and reveals her true plans toward Manley. How “she imagined, that things came to such a pass that she very easily seduced him and that then, of course, she had to reckon with his remorse.” (189), and how “she took his remorse in hand and changed it into a deeper understanding of life.” (189). In other words, Joy/Hulga has decided to have her way with the young man and has convinced herself that he will be hart broken for the experience. It is at this point that she has imagined taken his “shame away and [has] turned it into something useful” (189). Therefore, it is ironic that Joy/Hulga is the one left to reckon with remorse. After throwing out her plans of deceiving Manley she reveals her true nature as a scared and naïve woman who has never been intimate with a man. In return Manley reveals his true nature as being malicious and cunning by his intentions to use and leave her. It is here that another irony of the story is revealed when O’Connor has Joy/Hulga’s “book smarts” out-witted by Manley’s “street smarts.” Lastly, the sto...