the effective use of irony. Her use of a well-known cliche for the title immediately suggests that the story is most likely concerned with the opposite of "Good Country People". The names of the characters are also significant uses of irony and characterization. Mrs. Hopewell spends her life hoping for the best but is oblivious to reality and takes whatever comes. Mrs. Freeman, like the other characters, thinks she is free but is a prisoner of her ignorance and illusions. Her daughters, Caramae and Glynese, are as meaningless as their names and might as well be named, as Hulga calls them, Caramel and Glycerin. Manley Pointer, the Bible salesman, whom Mrs. Hopewell calls "the salt of the earth," is not a man emotionally or sexually and points only to the evil and ugliness of life. The idea that the main character changes her name from Joy to Hulga because she felt it to be more real is also ironic because Hulga is the one who is most fooled by reality. She feels that she has the answer to life in her belief in nothing until she sees this idea mirrored to her in the personage of Manley Pointer. He too believes in nothing, but by his actions Hulga is forced to see the ugliness and evil that he embodies. When he takes the leg, Hulga is forced to see reality and to see the futility in her belief in nothing. "Without the leg she felt entirely dependent on him. Her brain seemed to have stopped thinking altogether and to be about some other function that it was not very good at." Her intelligence and her "number of degrees" are of no help to her. She has to see herself as the incomplete person she is. It is also interesting and ironic that Hulga, who seems to be the least offensive character in the story, is made to suffer the most, while Manley Pointer, the truly evil character, escapes unscathed. Perhaps this is the author's way of showing that Hulga is the one who is most fooled or most wrong about the meaning of life. However, with further analysis, one might come to the conclusion that Hulga is actually the winner in the story. At least she is given the opportunity to see her life realistically and the chance to change it. Manley Pointer, on the other hand, is still in ignorance. In taking Hulga's wooden leg, he carries away what he considers a prize but in reality is only the incompleteness or emptiness of life. The author ends the story at the climax and at the point of the preeminent character's possible change. This technique forces the reader to empathize with the main character and to think of what she will do now if she will indeed change. Leaving Hulga in a helpless state leads the reader into re-examining her ideals and his own. Flannery O'Connor is a sophisticated writer and skillfully raises many questions but provides no easy answers. She purposefully leaves much to the reader to decide. CONTINGENCY by Robert J. Arway The bird that cleaves the quiet air, And passes on, Leaves not a trace to mark its flight, The fish that flashes through the sea, And passes on, A trackless deep leaves to the night. The melody within my heart That passes on Is lost forever to the world. And I poor singer am a song That passes on Known only to my Singer and the curled Ear of your pathless, quiet air. SOLILOQUY by Therese Allen A swarm of people teemed against the subway doors grey people with bleached faces. To the observer they were no more than a force, a milling crowd of dishuman humanity. Howard stood a little to the left. The waves of people scraped against him, buffeting him like a grain of sand, sucked and swirled in a turbulent ocean wave, until finally he mingled, and was quickly absorbed, relinquishing his one infinitesimal bubble of identity. He was not of massive size or distinquishing demeanor. His sparse brown hair fell like a wire brush across a reticent forehead, folded in never relaxing convolutions. His soft, slightly puffy body aroused little curiosity; indeed the aspect of greatest interest about him could only be his typicality. Howard was the epitome of bland, city manhood. His grey wallstreet suit, hat, walk and briefcase, devoid of ornament, mixed easily with the fluid mass and passed out of the bombardment of billboards into the carnivorous steel and vinyl cavity of the subway. The interior was warm and close, smelling faintly of dry air-conditioning and sticky, skinwarmed plastic. Howard chose a seat about midway in the car and settled himself into the preassigned position indented by so many other wallstreet grey-pants. Automatically he raised his newspaper. Then, behind the rustling dusty print screen, his eyes revealed their secret. The lids raised laboriously, disclosing eyes made of glittering emerald green; the left one sparkled with small yellow flecks. His eyes glazed over the newspaper blurring before him. Gradually the pale lids assumed their customary half closed position. The masticating movement of the subway created a protective zone around him. Thus encased, he could not notice the swollen stroking hands of the man seated in the adjoining indentation, or the woman whose huge arm in an incongrous cap sleeve juggled in time to the metallic music while her protrubrant eyes darted constantly from face to face, yet never pierced the molecules of air that somehow entombed each passenger in a contoured cubicle. The ride should have been nothing new to Howard. Every workday at 7:00 a.m. he made the grinding journey to the heart of the clamorous, particle-shrouded city. Every day, precisely at 7:50 he emerged from the throat of the subway and elbowed his way through the conglomerate of people to "Annie's 1 Stop Cafe" on 9th and 16th, where he routinely dedicated himself to a standard breakfast. At 8:45 he would gather coat and hat, leaving to become for eight hours one more fiber of the nerve that controlled the electric heartbeat of the city. At 5:00 p.m. the film would reel backwards, then stop with a click, as Howard pulled shut the heavy door of his lifeless concrete apartment building and echoed up a dimly lit, tiled stairwell to spend a few hours at sundry activities before retiring to bed. There he would often lie in a motionless coma of reflection for hours. On the opposite wall the eyes of his former wife, which for seven long years had bored into him, glazing relentlessly from their cheap gilt frame, had finally given up trying to see through the settled dust and thick gloom that pervaded the room. Howard's few acquaintances did not visit often. Perhaps they considered the flat a bit depressing, or didn't find a morose game of cards to their taste, or, and more likely, it was Howard's sudden disconcerting green gaze, which would ignite and retreat for brief unexpected moments that made them evasive of his company. Whatever the reason, Howard never seemed to concern himself over it. He lived his life, though some might consider it somewhat austere, simply by rote, past forgotten, future sure, present stable. Then, that morning, in the small hours of time between the clank of his apartment door at 6:45 and the arrival of the 7:00 a.m. subway, Howard's life left its rutted circle and took a slow, unwinding tangent. Howard's eyes flickered to his watch, comparing it with the clock 6 The Aardvark Review Volume 2, Number 1 above. He adjusted it the necessary three minutes and wedged himself through the crowds leaving the subway until, thoroughly entangled, he became one with the heavy close mass that moved in an encroaching wave toward the lofty goal of slick plate glass and polished satin chrome doors ahead. Once attaining the doors, the regurgitated mob spread and dissolved, leaving Howard in control again. The cafe doors responded to his tug, then whooshed shut behind him as he took his usual seat at the counter. Every morning since he had begun coming to the cafe, Annie had been his waitress. She, with knowing eyes, would automatically cease wiping the worn, smooth formica countertop and greet him cheerfully, although he never answered, as he maneuvered into the swivelling stool. Annie's crooked fingers would write up the order that never varied, serve his breakfast coffee and retreat to fry eggs and bacon at the steamy grill behind. Annie was one of those women born to be a waitress. She was possessed of a sly intuition rather than intellect, and her large peasant body had a strength exactly suited for the job. On top of a high forehead creased with firm wizened wrinkles a tiny bun of sparse grey hair rested precariously, bobbing as she deftly flipped eggs three at a time, placed them before Howard and moved off to begin to wipe again. The warm coffee slurped gently over the side of Howard's earthenware cup, becoming sweeter with each additional teaspoonful of sugar. He absentmindedly continued to scoop as the realization that accompanies change began to dawn. The vague uneasiness and irregularity surfaced. Lurching dizzily, the emotion he had hidden for seven years threatened to grow to full proportions. Inside, the clotted cogs in his mind moved rustily. His eyelids changed from their droop that tells of too much sleep and tightened imperceptibly. In his forearm and back the sinew tautened. Another change took place: an extremely significant event. He had a thought, not profound, but rather slightly silly, even to himself. He wondered what the khaki coated arm on the counter next to him would do if it found itself suddenly stained with warm, oversweet brown liquid? His hand itched to tip the cup. He twitched a muscle forward only a fraction, then quickly retracted it and subdued the driving desire. His glance shifted defensively left and right to see how many people had observed his impulse and labled it, and him, silly. Strange, no one had seemed to notice unless yes, Annie, with her small penetrating grey eyes must have seen. Even now he imagined he saw her covertly watching him from behind the spatterscreen shielding the sizzling grill, laughing. The pricking memories he had smothered out of his mind resurfaced in a staggering rush. He felt the painful whizzing sensation that accompanies the need to sleep. His mind eclipsed back into his sixth grade year. The children, there they were again. After fifteen years their pale, luminescent faces and whirling kaleidoscope colored clothing still circled him. Jeering, ridiculing, Howard they taunted, idiot Howard, idiot Howard. He tried desperately to stop the flow of images that had tormented him for so many years, until, seven years ago he had unflinchingly killed them forever. Or so he thought. The event had been blocked completely until moments before, but now the past pressed in, poking his mind with sharp braille dots. Against the force of will Howard slid back seven years and stood by the kitchen sink, staring stupidly at the shattered glass and milk he had accidently dropped. His wife knelt there mopping up, teasing, calling him joking little names and laughing. She, with her constant voice and easy self-confidence presented the perfect opportunity to end the torment. Slowly he reached up and pulled the dish towel from the rack. Then, with the deliberation befitting madness he wrapped it around her white downy neck. Now no one would laugh anymore. The tight grey chrysalis that had surrounded Howard day after dull day in thick grey solitude shredded slowly, though the moth inside was already formed, resurrected from the previous worm. When the shuffling metamorphosis was complete, it would emerge, a distasteful creature much more complex than the wriggling nonentity that had preceded it. Howard touched his personality cautiously, gingerly rubbing the sliver filled fiber between his fingers, trying on the blue angel hair suit with care. The massive movement of the subway stopped, the beast threw wide its doors, spitting from its innards the city's midmorning lunch onto concrete wrinkled by heat waves. Howard's right shoulder snagged along the store fronts as he moved, though with his left he kept a constant liquid space bubble. His dropped eyes were almost closed in defiance of the myraid, harsh, hot, sweating lights. Chill trickled through his hair and down his back and the handle of his briefcase became slimy with moisture. Following the mass of others, Howard stepped off concrete and onto pavement. Belatedly he noticed the walk signal flashing to red and tried desperately to retreat. Finding himself barred in on all sides by cars and the squealing honking noises of haggard motorists he felt the blood pound blindingly to his head. Eyes unfocused, he lurched through the tangled chain of traffic until his shoes once again touched concrete. There he stood, toes in and head down, defensively awaiting punishment none came. Warily he raised his head, then defiantly he searched the pasty faces of people around him. Rage seized him. Laughing. They were all laughing inside. The girl pointing him out to her cab driver, the cop silently chuckling, and the little group on the other side glancing at him occasionally and then snorting with mirth. He began to push through the crowds, his roughly running feet slapping on the hot pavement as he gathered desperate speed. Curious heads turned, and more people pointed. Howard's desperate mind pleaded with them to stop, he hated them for mocking. His eyes no longer dropped, they stood out prominent and green. Panting, he pushed with the flat of his hand against the cool glass cafe door. Leaving grimy print behind he defended himself against the surprised looks of other patrons. He paused just inside the doorway, painfully aware of his appearance. His thin nervous hands quickly buttoned his suitcoat and picked imaginary bits of lint from his pants. In an attempt to regain composure he veiled his eyes and with a great show of dignity he forced himself to walk through piercing stares to the men's room. Once inside he collapsed, blood gorged head in hands, oblivious to the hard rim of the toilet seat. Several moments later he realized his predicament. There was no escape. His only choice of exit was exactly the way he had come in. His stomach gurgled, but with fear, not hunger. He could just walk out, head down. But his own sense of propriety prevented him. Tied with iron bonds by his own mind, Howard arose and flushed the toilet deceitfully, then delivered himself to the fancied scrutiny of the other customers whom he believed watched him intently between every mouthful of dripping yellow egg whites and toast. Annie had already finished wiping the already clean counter and begun to stroll over, but halted in surprise, as for the first time in years, Howard raised his menu. Her manner was like that of a rebuffed lover. She sniffed, but she had her reputation to keep up. With a tolerant shrug she busied herself energetically abusing the coffee cup ring stains on the counter. Howard's long slim fingers drummed slowly, flatly on the outside of his menu. Stealthily each raised slowly and descended in succession, keeping time to the pattern developing within his brain. His eyes were open again, almost reflected in the slick plastic lamination of the menu, but Howard wasn't looking at the menu. Rather he stared through it, at Annie, for she, he had decided, was the cause. She had been the first to laugh. From the side his green eyes followed her Volume 2, Number 1 The Aardvark Review 7