The Life You Save May Be Your Own Themes

Free Will and Redemption

In “The Life You Save May Be Your Own,” drifter Tom Shiftlet arrives at Mrs. Crater’s farm offering work in exchange for food and lodging. Shiftlet quickly gains Mrs. Crater’s trust, but he has evil intentions: he’s scheming to fix up the family’s car and take it for himself. Shiftlet’s time with Mrs. Crater and her disabled daughter, Lucynell, offers him an opportunity for redemption: he could stay with the family, marry Lucynell…

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Brokenness and Repair

“The Life You Save May Be Your Own” is full of broken objects and broken people. Tom Shiftlet, a drifting carpenter, fixes up a broken car on the Crater farm. Mrs. Crater is missing her teeth, her daughter Lucynell is mentally disabled, and their farm is full of broken objects—even though it’s also a respite from a broken, sinful world. Shiftlet himself is missing an arm, but it’s his spirit that is truly broken…

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Gender and Disability

Throughout the story, Tom Shiftlet seems preoccupied with his own masculinity. He talks frequently about what defines a man, reflecting his insecurity that others might think his missing arm makes him less of one. Meanwhile, the characters treat Lucynell as though she were the perfect woman: she’s physically beautiful and, because of her intellectual disability, she’s docile and mostly silent. But in the end, Shiftlet’s disability makes him no less powerful—he’s a man with the…

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Deception and Unknowability

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…

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