The Life You Save May Be Your Own

by

Flannery O’Connor

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Tom Shiftlet Character Analysis

Tom Shiftlet, the 28 year old protagonist of the story, is a one-armed traveling carpenter. He claims to be from Tarwater, Tennessee, and to have served in the military, traveled abroad, and worked various different jobs, although he also points out that he could be lying about any of this. This means that readers, like the story’s other characters, aren’t sure about his real identity. When Shiftlet first arrives at the Crater family’s farm, Mrs. Crater offers to let him stay at the farm and work in exchange for food and shelter. Shiftlet agrees to this, but he seems a bit shady, as he dodges many of her questions or provides cryptic, unrelated answers. But Shiftlet does start fixing up broken things around the farm, and he also befriends Mrs. Crater’s daughter, Lucynell, who is deaf and mute. He’s surprisingly tender with her, even teaching her to say her first word, “bird.” Finally, Shiftlet is able to miraculously get the family’s broken car running—a car that he’s been fixated on since the moment he arrived at the farm, seemingly because he’s scheming to take it for himself. At Mrs. Crater’s urging, Shiftlet agrees to marry Lucynell—but only after she promises him money to take Lucynell on a honeymoon. When they marry at a courthouse, they immediately drive off on their honeymoon. Quickly, Shiftlet abandons Lucynell at a roadside restaurant and continues on alone with the car. Throughout the story, Shiftlet has been something of a sinister Christ figure—his outstretched arms form a “crooked cross” and he seems torn between virtue (kindness to Lucynell, fixing broken things on the farm) and sin (lying and manipulation, leaving Lucynell at the restaurant). In the car, at the end of the story, Shiftlet almost has a reckoning, feeling a sudden obligation to help others and a desire for God to wash the whole world clean. While he seems to contemplate turning back towards Lucynell, he eventually chooses to drive onward, refusing the grace from God that he prayed for as he tries to outrun a gathering storm.

Tom Shiftlet Quotes in The Life You Save May Be Your Own

The The Life You Save May Be Your Own quotes below are all either spoken by Tom Shiftlet or refer to Tom Shiftlet. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Free Will and Redemption Theme Icon
).
The Life You Save May Be Your Own Quotes

He swung both his whole and his short arm up slowly so that they indicated an expanse of sky and his figure formed a crooked cross. The old woman watched him with her arms folded across her chest as if she were the owner of the sun, and the daughter watched, her head thrust forward and her fat helpless hands hanging at the wrists.

Related Characters: Tom Shiftlet, Mrs. Crater, Lucynell Crater
Page Number: 146
Explanation and Analysis:

Mr. Shiftlet's pale sharp glance had already passed over everything in the yard—the pump near the corner of the house and the big fig tree that three or four chickens were preparing to roost in—and had moved to a shed where he saw the square rusted back of an automobile. "You ladies drive?" he asked.

"That car ain't run in fifteen year," the old woman said. "The day my husband died, it quit running."

"Nothing is like it used to be, lady," he said. "The world is almost rotten."

"That's right," the old woman said.

Related Characters: Tom Shiftlet (speaker), Mrs. Crater (speaker)
Related Symbols: The Car
Page Number: 146
Explanation and Analysis:

"Lady," he said, and turned and gave her his full attention, "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," he repeated, leaning forward, "out of a man's chest and held it in his hand," and he held his hand out, palm up, as if it were slightly weighted with the human heart, "and studied it like it was a day-old chicken, and lady," he said, allowing a long significant pause in which his head slid forward and his clay-colored eyes brightened, "he don't know no more about it than you or me."

Related Characters: Tom Shiftlet (speaker), Mrs. Crater
Page Number: 147
Explanation and Analysis:

"Are you married or are you single?" the old woman asked.

There was a long silence. "Lady," he asked finally, "where would you find you an innocent woman today? I wouldn't have any of this trash I could just pick up."

Related Characters: Tom Shiftlet (speaker), Mrs. Crater (speaker)
Page Number: 149
Explanation and Analysis:

He had patched the front and back steps, built a new hog pen, restored a fence, and taught Lucynell, who was completely deaf and had never said a word in her life, to say the word "bird." The big rosy-faced girl followed him everywhere, saying "Burrttddt ddbirrrttdt," and clapping her hands. The old woman watched from a distance, secretly pleased. She was ravenous for a son-in-law.

Related Characters: Lucynell Crater (speaker), Tom Shiftlet, Mrs. Crater
Page Number: 150
Explanation and Analysis:

With a volley of blasts it emerged from the shed, moving in a fierce and stately way. Mr. Shiftlet was in the driver's seat, sitting very erect. He had an expression of serious modesty on his face as if he had just raised the dead.

Related Characters: Tom Shiftlet
Related Symbols: The Car
Page Number: 151
Explanation and Analysis:

"Listen here, Mr. Shiftlet," she said, sliding forward in her chair, "you'd be getting a permanent house and a deep well and the most innocent girl in the world. You don't need no money. Lemme tell you something: there ain't any place in the world for a poor disabled friendless drifting man.”

The ugly words settled in Mr. Shiftlet's head like a group of buzzards in the top of a tree. He didn't answer at once. He rolled himself a cigarette and lit it and then he said in an even voice, "Lady, a man is divided into two parts, body and spirit.”

The old woman clamped her gums together.

"A body and a spirit,” he repeated. “The body, lady, is like a house: it don't go anywhere; but the spirit, lady, is like a automobile: always on the move, always…"

Related Characters: Tom Shiftlet (speaker), Mrs. Crater
Related Symbols: The Car
Page Number: 152
Explanation and Analysis:

In the darkness, Mr. Shiftlet's smile stretched like a weary snake waking up by a fire.

Related Characters: Tom Shiftlet
Page Number: 152
Explanation and Analysis:

The boy bent over her and stared at the long pink-gold hair and the half-shut sleeping eyes. Then he looked up and stared at Mr. Shiftlet. "She looks like an angel of Gawd," he murmured.

"Hitchhiker," Mr. Shiftlet explained. "I can't wait. I got to make Tuscaloosa."

The boy bent over again and very carefully touched his finger to a strand of the golden hair and Mr. Shiftlet left.

Related Characters: Tom Shiftlet (speaker), Waiter at the Hot Spot (speaker), Lucynell Crater
Page Number: 154
Explanation and Analysis:

There were times when Mr. Shiftlet preferred not to be alone. He felt too that a man with a car had a responsibility to others and he kept his eye out for a hitchhiker. Occasionally he saw a sign that warned: "Drive carefully. The life you save may be your own."

Related Characters: Tom Shiftlet
Related Symbols: The Car
Page Number: 154
Explanation and Analysis:

Mr. Shiftlet felt that the rottenness of the world was about to engulf him. He raised his arm and let it fall again to his breast. "Oh Lord!" he prayed. "Break forth and wash the slime from this earth!"

Related Characters: Tom Shiftlet
Related Symbols: The Car
Page Number: 156
Explanation and Analysis:
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Tom Shiftlet Quotes in The Life You Save May Be Your Own

The The Life You Save May Be Your Own quotes below are all either spoken by Tom Shiftlet or refer to Tom Shiftlet. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Free Will and Redemption Theme Icon
).
The Life You Save May Be Your Own Quotes

He swung both his whole and his short arm up slowly so that they indicated an expanse of sky and his figure formed a crooked cross. The old woman watched him with her arms folded across her chest as if she were the owner of the sun, and the daughter watched, her head thrust forward and her fat helpless hands hanging at the wrists.

Related Characters: Tom Shiftlet, Mrs. Crater, Lucynell Crater
Page Number: 146
Explanation and Analysis:

Mr. Shiftlet's pale sharp glance had already passed over everything in the yard—the pump near the corner of the house and the big fig tree that three or four chickens were preparing to roost in—and had moved to a shed where he saw the square rusted back of an automobile. "You ladies drive?" he asked.

"That car ain't run in fifteen year," the old woman said. "The day my husband died, it quit running."

"Nothing is like it used to be, lady," he said. "The world is almost rotten."

"That's right," the old woman said.

Related Characters: Tom Shiftlet (speaker), Mrs. Crater (speaker)
Related Symbols: The Car
Page Number: 146
Explanation and Analysis:

"Lady," he said, and turned and gave her his full attention, "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," he repeated, leaning forward, "out of a man's chest and held it in his hand," and he held his hand out, palm up, as if it were slightly weighted with the human heart, "and studied it like it was a day-old chicken, and lady," he said, allowing a long significant pause in which his head slid forward and his clay-colored eyes brightened, "he don't know no more about it than you or me."

Related Characters: Tom Shiftlet (speaker), Mrs. Crater
Page Number: 147
Explanation and Analysis:

"Are you married or are you single?" the old woman asked.

There was a long silence. "Lady," he asked finally, "where would you find you an innocent woman today? I wouldn't have any of this trash I could just pick up."

Related Characters: Tom Shiftlet (speaker), Mrs. Crater (speaker)
Page Number: 149
Explanation and Analysis:

He had patched the front and back steps, built a new hog pen, restored a fence, and taught Lucynell, who was completely deaf and had never said a word in her life, to say the word "bird." The big rosy-faced girl followed him everywhere, saying "Burrttddt ddbirrrttdt," and clapping her hands. The old woman watched from a distance, secretly pleased. She was ravenous for a son-in-law.

Related Characters: Lucynell Crater (speaker), Tom Shiftlet, Mrs. Crater
Page Number: 150
Explanation and Analysis:

With a volley of blasts it emerged from the shed, moving in a fierce and stately way. Mr. Shiftlet was in the driver's seat, sitting very erect. He had an expression of serious modesty on his face as if he had just raised the dead.

Related Characters: Tom Shiftlet
Related Symbols: The Car
Page Number: 151
Explanation and Analysis:

"Listen here, Mr. Shiftlet," she said, sliding forward in her chair, "you'd be getting a permanent house and a deep well and the most innocent girl in the world. You don't need no money. Lemme tell you something: there ain't any place in the world for a poor disabled friendless drifting man.”

The ugly words settled in Mr. Shiftlet's head like a group of buzzards in the top of a tree. He didn't answer at once. He rolled himself a cigarette and lit it and then he said in an even voice, "Lady, a man is divided into two parts, body and spirit.”

The old woman clamped her gums together.

"A body and a spirit,” he repeated. “The body, lady, is like a house: it don't go anywhere; but the spirit, lady, is like a automobile: always on the move, always…"

Related Characters: Tom Shiftlet (speaker), Mrs. Crater
Related Symbols: The Car
Page Number: 152
Explanation and Analysis:

In the darkness, Mr. Shiftlet's smile stretched like a weary snake waking up by a fire.

Related Characters: Tom Shiftlet
Page Number: 152
Explanation and Analysis:

The boy bent over her and stared at the long pink-gold hair and the half-shut sleeping eyes. Then he looked up and stared at Mr. Shiftlet. "She looks like an angel of Gawd," he murmured.

"Hitchhiker," Mr. Shiftlet explained. "I can't wait. I got to make Tuscaloosa."

The boy bent over again and very carefully touched his finger to a strand of the golden hair and Mr. Shiftlet left.

Related Characters: Tom Shiftlet (speaker), Waiter at the Hot Spot (speaker), Lucynell Crater
Page Number: 154
Explanation and Analysis:

There were times when Mr. Shiftlet preferred not to be alone. He felt too that a man with a car had a responsibility to others and he kept his eye out for a hitchhiker. Occasionally he saw a sign that warned: "Drive carefully. The life you save may be your own."

Related Characters: Tom Shiftlet
Related Symbols: The Car
Page Number: 154
Explanation and Analysis:

Mr. Shiftlet felt that the rottenness of the world was about to engulf him. He raised his arm and let it fall again to his breast. "Oh Lord!" he prayed. "Break forth and wash the slime from this earth!"

Related Characters: Tom Shiftlet
Related Symbols: The Car
Page Number: 156
Explanation and Analysis: