The Life You Save May Be Your Owen

The chapter of this pasage is called The Life You Save May Be Your Own. The main Character's of this story are Mr. Shiftlet, Lucynell, and the old woman, Lucynell's mother. As Mr. Shiflet approaches the desolate home of Lucynell and her mother, the old woman could see, even H from a distance, that he was a "tramp and no one to be afraid of".The text states,"He had long black slick hair that hung flat from a part in the middle to beyond the tips of his earrs on either sid. His face descended in forehead for more than half its length and ended suddenly with his features just balanced over a jutting steeltrap jaw. He seemed to be a young man but he had a look of composed dissatisfaction as if he understood life thorougly." One would agree that Mr. Shiftlet is an experienced and exposed man who is serious when it comes to business and conning. On pages146-147 he seems especially intersted in the car, Lucynell owns. The problem, with what Mr. Shiftlet assumes to a 1928 or 1929 Ford, is it stopped running 15 years ago. There is something that is very secretive and conviving about this man. When the mother asks him where he's from he ignores her. Does he bring danger? Is it his past that has wounded him? As the passage countinues I begin to ask myself what is his purpose for visting this family of women and I begin to doubt his intensions. The passage says, " He asked her what she thought she was made for but she didn't answer, she only sat rocking and wondered if a one- armed man could put a roof on her garden house. He asked a lot of questions that she didn't answer." We find that he is supposedly 28 years old; And he had a varied life. He was a gospel singer, a foreman on the railroad, an assistant in an undertaking parlor, and he fought and bled in the Arm Service for his country. We can assume that Mr. Shiflet has seen a lot in his 28 years of living. I commend Flannery O' Conner for her great imagery descriptions and characterizations for characters. Then we find that in the passage Lucynell, who is deaf, and Mr. Shiflet, get married. However, you could tell he did not want to be married to a girl who had mental disabilties. After the marriage ceremony, the newly married went out on their honeymoon where Mr. Shiflet left Lucynell in a restaurant abandoned in the middle of nowhere. However, he got what he wanted since the beginning. He conned the mother and he got a car. On his way to nowhere he picked up a kid who was running away and was to intentionally give the boy the Lucynell to adopt. To his surprise the boy jumped out of the car. Did he die or did he live? We do not know; But to save himself from any trouble Mr.Shiftlet drove away hastily away from the scene.