Dramatic Irony

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Dramatic Irony At Its Best
By definition, dramatic irony is when the words and actions of the characters of a work of literature have a different meaning for the reader than they do for the characters. This is the result of the reader’s having a greater knowledge than the characters themselves. Flannery O’Connor presents the characters in her story by allowing the reader to know more about the characters than they do about each other in order to have a deeper understanding of what her short story is really about. In O’Connor’s “Good Country People,” the reader is aware of the dramatic irony occurring throughout the short story.
Mrs. Hopewell, one of the four main characters in “Good Country People,” believes herself to be superior to everyone around her; In reality she is the same as everyone else around her. “Her silver gleamed on the two sideboards; she decided he had never been in a room as elegant as this” (421). When Manly Pointer is invited into the living room to try to sell Bibles to Mrs. Hopewell she automatically assumes that her living room is the nicest one he has ever set foot in. Mrs. Hopewell’s haughty outlook towards Manly Pointer allows the reader to acknowledge her thinking of superiority towards others. After reading only the first few paragraphs, the reader already realizes how naïve Mrs. Hopewell comes across, and they are able to look past future judgments she bestows upon herself.
Along with Mrs. Hopewell’s superiority, she also believes that she is in charge of everything. When Mrs. Hopewell hires the Freemans to help her with her home and farm she finds out Mrs. Freeman is the nosiest woman after she consults a reference the Freeman’s provided. “Since she was the type who had to be into everything, then, Mrs. Hopewell had decided, she would not only let her be into everything, she would see to it that she was into everything – she would give her the responsibility of...