"'He bored me to death but he was so sincere and genuine I couldn't be rude to him. He was just good country people, you know,' she said, '- Just the salt of the earth.'" (O'Connor). 6. This is ironic because Manly turns out to be the exact opposite of "good country people". He turns out to be a very bad and twisted man, in fact. He enjoys tricking people, and conning them out of certain possessions. O'Connor has Mrs. Hopewell see him as a good person to prove her point about deception and reality. She is proving that how certain things, or people, appear at face value, isn't exactly how they are. She is expressing that you should really get to know someone, how they are inside, not outside, before you fully trust or judge them. O'Connor has Mrs. Hopewell see Mr. Pointer as a good country person, but in reality he symbolizes the devil in the story. He tricks Joy into giving him her leg, symbolizing her soul, and he gets away with it. She uses this irony to help express this character as a deceitful individual. She wants the reader to see that you should always know exactly who someone is, not just how they look, before you trust them.