As in many of Flannery O’Connor’s short stories, nothing is what it appears in “The Life You Save May Be Your Own.” The most obvious example is Shiftlet, who conceals his true nature and lies about his intentions, but Mrs. Crater also acts deceitfully—and is punished for it through the loss of her daughter. In addition to the characters’ posturing and false appearances, the inherent unknowability of humanity is a frequent motif in their conversations. By the end, Shiftlet’s deception has allowed him to achieve his goal of owning an automobile. He nevertheless seems unfulfilled, but he can’t articulate why. This suggests that a person’s “true nature,” if it exists at all, will always remain unknowable—even to themselves.
Shiftlet’s initial arrival at the Craters’ farm emphasizes the unreliability of first impressions. Mrs. Crater’s very first impression of Shiftlet is that he’s “a tramp and no one to be afraid of.” By the end of the story, when Shiftlet steals the family car and abandons Lucynell, it’s clear that he is someone she should have been more worried about. The possibility of appearances being misleading is also raised in more subtle ways, like when Mrs. Crater lifts up her lip to reveal she has no teeth, or the gradual way the extent of Lucynell’s disability becomes clear. Importantly, Shiftlet draws attention to the possibility that he might be lying about his identity as soon as he arrives at the Craters’ farm, asking “how you know I ain't lying?” when he introduces himself. He quickly rattles off a list of possible other identities, including names and cities, suggesting that “Tom T. Shiftlet” could be another made-up name. But Mrs. Crater decides to trust him, even though she doesn’t know anything about him.
Both Shiftlet and (to a lesser extent) Mrs. Crater use deception to get what they think they want. Mrs. Crater is so desperate for a son-in-law that she does anything she can to convince Shiftlet to marry Lucynell, including giving him money for a trip and lying about Lucynell’s age to make her seem more attractive. Of course, Shiftlet’s deception is greater: he wants to steal the fixed-up family car, and he agrees to marry Lucynell only to achieve that goal. He spins a tale about taking Lucynell on a honeymoon as a way of gaining access to the car and some money. However, he quickly abandons Lucynell and makes off with the automobile.
By the end, neither character has found fulfillment through their deceit. Mrs. Crater, by marrying off her daughter, has lost her—perhaps forever. The story doesn’t show what becomes of Lucynell after Shiftlet abandons her, but readers do know that losing Lucynell has always been Mrs. Crater’s biggest fear. Her susceptibility to Shiftlet’s deceit, and her willingness to use deceit herself, have cost her everything. Meanwhile, Shiftlet appears to have gotten exactly what he wanted—access to a car—but he still seems to feel guilty and unfulfilled. He picks up a hitchhiker in a show of generosity and gets teary-eyed telling the boy about how much he regrets leaving his old mother. The language Shiftlet uses, and the emphasis on motherhood, suggests a connection to the separation between a mother (Mrs. Crater) and her child (Lucynell) that he has just caused. Still, he’s unable to articulate his own guilt, and the story ends with him seriously distressed, despite having achieved his goal.
Throughout the story, Shiftlet has continually made references to how little anyone, including legal and scientific authorities, understands about human nature. In the opening scene, he tells an anecdote about a doctor in Atlanta who dissected and studied a human heart, concluding by saying “he don't know no more about it than you or me.” This statement functions both as a rejection of authority, and as a stubborn assertion that a person’s inner nature (often represented by the heart) is unknowable to anyone. Clearly, this is an important belief to Shiftlet: he delivers it without any prompting, and repeats the sentiment throughout the story, most notably after he marries Lucynell at the courthouse: “If they was to take my heart and cut it out,” he says, “they wouldn’t know a thing about me.” By the end, this statement comes to feel like an encapsulation of the story: none of the characters seem to have truly understood each other, and Shiftlet’s final line of dialogue—“Oh Lord! Break forth and wash the slime from this earth!”—shows that he doesn’t understand his own actions. This suggests that if there’s any such thing as a person’s “true nature,” perhaps God is the only one who can understand it.
Related Themes from Other Texts
Deception and Unknowability ThemeTracker
Deception and Unknowability Quotes in The Life You Save May Be Your Own
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.
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.
"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."
In the darkness, Mr. Shiftlet's smile stretched like a weary snake waking up by a fire.
