Which excerpt from O’Connor’s “Good Country People” best reveals the irony of the main character’s name, Joy? Mrs. Hopewell thought of her as a child though she was thirty-two years old and highly educated.
She would make these statements, usually at the table, in a tone of gentle insistence as if no one held them but her.
And when Joy had to be impressed for these services, her remarks were usually so ugly and her face so glum...
She saw it as the name of her highest creative act.