Themes Of Saving Your Life Essay

Saving Your Life: A Continuously Relevant Topic

If someone told you “the life you save may be your own”, how would you interpret it? In the story, “The Life You Save May Be Your Own”, Tom Shiftlet happens upon this saying as he is trying to escape his mistakes. The symbolism with this saying shows how Mr Shiftlet needs to change his ways if he wants to stop hurting the people he cares about. This short story by Flannery O 'Conner brings together the themes of gender inequality and the 1950s to formulate a story with such an impact. “The Life You Save May Be Your Own” by Flannery O’Conner is a timeless classic with values and themes that can apply to life in any generation because of its historical time period, its perspective, and its symbolism.

Also, similar to Lucynell 's situation, O 'Conner had lupus, an incurable metabolic disease. This caused her to end her writing career in order to live out the rest of her life. This part of her life came out in Lucynell the daughter because she was pretty much helpless and relied on her mother to help her with most things. Flannery O’Conner was stricken with a disease, lupus, which also killed her father. (Women of Words, 155-159) This reflects the story because both women had difficulties that they needed help to overcome. Where O 'Conner grew up affected her writing and the themes in her stories. Growing up in the South, she was probably more used to open spaces and rural areas, which is the setting of "The Life You Save May Be Your Own". The women lived in a rural area in the South, which is similar to where O 'Conner grew up. O’Conner was born in Georgia and that affected her writing perspective. (Women of Words) Her influences included her upbringing, early childhood home, and her

You could say that Mr. Shiftlet represents the male population in the fact that he is more free to move about and has no restrictions. The Craters are the female population of that time because they are more tied down to where they are and responsible for household tasks. The automobile represented the era of mobilization and the growth of technology. A criticism by Mark G. Edelstein touches on the topic of modern satire in O 'Conner 's work. He states that "O 'Conner satirizes both man 's perversity and his perversion"(Milne, 139) which is just saying that her writing style is like that of a satirist; her sarcasm and symbolism techniques are used to criticize man 's ways and gender