Summary Of The Life You Save By Flannery O Connor

The life you save is a short story written by Flannery O’Connor that tells the tale of two people that are trying to take advantage of one another. We learn early in the story that the setting is on a small desolate location where two women live. While they both share the same name; Lucynell Crater, Ms. Crater is the mother of Lucynell. The story has an interesting balance of character play because Ms. Crater and Mr. Shiftless drive the narration, Lucynell is the actual focus and the center of the story in my opinion. Mr. Shiftless is the wanderer that is crippled, but appears to have high moral’s and standards. Upon reading this story I find that there is a collection of irony, violence, and at times, graceful scenes to paint the picture of the lives of characters and how they are compatible with one another. There is also sense and feel for humankind’s need for a mysterious grace and appreciation of how the world works. Often times questions are posed in the story that attempts to define the

At first I did not recognize it but, Ms. Crater also had a hidden agenda, but I argue that her agenda was actually developed a little later on in the story once she sees how valuable Shiftlet presents himself to be. There are many times where he appears to be graceful and caring about what he is doing. I recall in the story when he initially said that he didn’t want any money and later Shiftlet is offended when Ms. Crater threw money in his face. He also unintentionally delivers a moment of grace to her when she seems to acknowledge her feelings for her daughter. Lucynell is mute and has an innocence about her that compares her to a 15-16-year-old girl, while Shiftlet has half an arm and struggles with acceptance in the outside world. All of these elements show that O’Connor is trying to tells us that it may not have been chance that these characters found themselves with each