The Life You Save May Be Your Own

1. “The Life You Save May Be Your Own” is concerned with one of the sacred rituals of the church: matrimony and the violation of its sacramental nature by Tom T. Shiftlet who utilizes it merely to serve selfish personal aims. The Life You Save May Be Your Own This story, like “Good Country People” is structured upon a basic pattern of mutual deception. When a stranger arrives at the farm, the mother, Mrs. Crater, immediately sense the possibility of obtaining a suitable mate for her unpromising offspring Lucynell… Mr. Shiftlet on the other hand sees the proposed marriage merely as a way of realizing his long-standing ambition to becomes an automobile owner. The ceremony concluded, he dumps his bride at a roadside cafe and continues his journey only slightly troubled by the betrayal.

2. Closely associated with the theme of deception is the question of human identity and the weaving of ones destiny toward unforeseen ends. In the strangers’s initial appearance at the farm, he discourses on the impenetrability of the human spirit… “Lady..lemme tell you something. There’s one of these doctors in Atlanta that’s taken a knife and cut the human heart--The human heart out of a mean’s chest and held it in his hand. .. and studied it like it was a day old chicken, and lady...he don’t know no more about it than you or me.”

3. Queried as to his background, the stranger reflects on the difficulties on establishing human identity. “ Lady,’ he said,’nowadays, people’ll do anything anyways . I can tell you my name is Tom T. Shiftlet and I come from Tarwater, Tennessee, but you never have seen me before: how you know I ain’t lying? How you know my name ain’t Aaron Sparks, lady, and I come from Singleberry, Georgia, or how you know it’s not George Speeds and I come from Lucy, Alabama, or how you know I ain’t Thompson Bright from Toolafalls, Mississippi?” Indeed , Mr. Shiftlet might be any of the personages mentioned in his catalog. Whatever he is, he is not the steady, reliable son-in-law Mrs. Crater seeks as a caretaker for her daughter, and a comfort to her in her old age.

4. Attitude toward Lucynell(the daughter)also differ: to Mrs. Crater, her imbecile offspring is worth a “casket of jewels.” She affirms: “She’s smart too. She can sweep a floor, cook, wash, feed the chickens and hoe.” To the youth in the Hot Spot (cafe) the, the sleeping bride is like “an angel of Gawd.”

5. Mr. Shiftlet sums up the difficulties inherent in establishing human identity in the conclusion to his self-introduction: “Maybe the best I can tell you is, I’m a man.” He then poses the questions which is in fact a basic concern of the story: “but listen lady...what is a man?” In a very real sense, he voices the problem explored by O’Connor in this story and all of her other work.

6. In a very real sense, he voices the problem explored by O’Connor in this story and all of her other work. Mrs. Crater, who is also guilty of deceit in the service of personal ambition, assures Shiftlet that her daughter is fifteen or sixteen, although the unfortunate creature is nearly thirty. Mrs. Crater obviously is aware of the advantages that will accrue to her in the possession of a handy-man carpenter for a son-in-law, for she speculates as to whether a “one armed man could put on a new roof on her garden house.” Lucynell is a pawn in the struggle, for each person carefully weighs the advantage to be gained by the bargain

7. Mr. Shiftlet asserts that an Atlanta doctor who examined the heart “don’t know no more about it than you or me.” The true nature of Shiftlet cannot be fathomed through scientific scrutiny, nor can he be comprehended by the limited mentality of Mrs. Crater. More important, Mr. Shiftlet, the “shifty “ little deceiver, is above all self-deceived. After he deposits Lucynell as the convenient road stop,he give no thought to his actions nor to Lucynell’s precarious plight.

8. After committing his shocking betrayal of the helpless half-wit in his charge, he picks up a hitchhiker because “he felt that a man with a car had a responsibility to others.” After outrageously betraying the trust of the aged mother, who was manifestly devoted to her child, despite her many imperfections, he launches into a discourse on the merits of his own parent: “It’s nothing so sweet...as a boy’s mother. She taught him his first prayers at the knee, she gave him love when no other would, she told him what was right and what wasn’t , and she seen that he done the right thing...My mother was a angel of Gawd.”

9. The hitchhiker, disgusted with Mr. Shiftlet’s sentimental display retorts angrily, “you go to the devil” and leaps from the car. Of course, Mr. Shiftlet has long since been of the devil’s party . He assumes that it is the world which is corrupt and interprets his inner sense of decay as a reaction to “The rottenness of the world” which “ was about to engulf him.”

10. As the storm clouds gather overhead, Mr. Shiftlet in an amazing display of self-righteousness, calls upon the creator: “‘Oh Lord!’ he prayed ‘Break forth and wash the slime from this earth!’” The mounting thunder and the huge raindrops, crashing “like tin can tops” on the roof of his car, suggest that he may not have to wait long before his prayers are answered. But Mr. Shiftlet has failed to heed the roadside warning: “Drive carefully. The life you save may be your own. Racing along the highway to Mobile, he does not notice that his own spiritual life is in imminent danger.