While I was reading this, I kept wondering who the reader was supposed to sympathize with and what we were supposed to take away from this story. O'Connor seemed to be making a statement with this story, but I am just not sure what the statement was. At first, it seems like O'Connor is making a statement about how mothers think that the only way their daughters can be valuable in society is if they are married (like Carramae) or desired (like Glynese), instead of educated like Joy. The two women get duped by the Bible salesman. What is this saying? It could be taken as some sort of comment on religion. Then Joy gets duped by the salesman. What is this saying? That she is book smart but not exactly street smart?
I also thought the names in this story were interesting, and I think the names play into what the statement of the story is. The two women in this story were referred to as Mrs. the whole way through, even though we do not see their husbands in this story. Because they are referred to as Mrs. they become identified by their marriage and by their husbands instead of by their own identities and their first names. Their names were also interesting choices: Freeman and Hopewell. Both of these names indicate their personalities. I also thought this was an interesting sentence too, "One of her [Joy's] major triumphs was that her mother had not been able to turn her dust into Joy" (267).
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Michelle, I totally agree about not knowing who to sympathize with here. I guess it's a natural tendency, but I always want to know who I'm "rooting for" in a story.
Here I really was beginning to like Joy, the more I got to know her. She was the intellectual. She dared to be atheist at a time and a place where that would have been scandelous. She is her own person, and I liked that, but I totally lost it all for her at the end when she completely did not see through Manely Pointer. I didn't really feel sorry for her, I just couldn't believe it.
Maybe this is O'Connor's point: There maybe is no one to root for. It gives me a very uneasy feeling, but perhaps a "good"character is also hard to find.
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