Flannery O’Connor’s short story, "The Life You Save May Be Your Own," is included in The Complete Stories.
It's haunting, possibly because O'Connor freely borrows key images from a number of her other stories. For example, the image of the car as a vehicle of freedom and justification is used in Wise Blood (with its main character Hazel Motes noting that a man with a good car doesn't need salvation); and the notion of Catholicism as a dismissable unadvanced and "old" religion by a character who hasn't the patience to think deeply about spiritual things is used in The Displaced Person and other places. And, as is common, the story includes a widow with an invalid or idiot adult daughter who is unmarried. (It's interesting how often O'Connor uses this image since she was a physically afflicted, unmarried adult daughter living with a widowed mother. It's self-deprecating, perhaps, and brings recognition of her own need for grace to the forefront of her stories.)
I’ll try to explain my on-going response while reading the story. I read the story in two sittings: I started it in the morning and completed it the next evening. This story didn't settled easily with me: it took some thinking before it was "satisfying."
But, back to the visceral response: As I began to read the story, I realized that I didn’t know it, which was nice because I’ve re-read so many of Flannery O’Connor’s short stories. As I got into it, I wanted the story to get along. I wanted it to make progress. I had the impatience common to her characters and I didn’t care for the two main characters, Tom Shiftlet (which appropriately rhymes with Shiftless and he is a scoundrel) and Lucynell Carter, the widow-mother who owned the place that Shiftlet happened upon, who has her own selfish purposes as well. I didn’t like Shiftlet and I didn’t care for his long-windedness, although that’s a usual characteristic of Flannery O’Connor characters – they cover their brokenness by talking a lot about their all-knowing perspective on the world.
Sidenote: I think that I wanted the characters to be more humorous. Like the Grandmother in A Good Man Is Hard To Find, I wanted characters that made me laugh. None of the five characters in this story entertained me. They were uncomfortably odd.
Article comments
1 - Rufina
Gothic and painfully funny.
Kind of pointless, but that's how you learn literature...
2 - Steve
Lucynell is the daughter, not the old woman. Way to mess that up.
3 - TJ
if you had bothered to reread you would know both the mother and daughter are named Lucynell
4 - Roland Allen
Thanks for noting that they're both named "Lucynell." A fact that I believe indicates something about the old woman.
5 - mac
the old woman and the daughter both have the same name, Lucynell Carter.
6 - Priscilla
i just read the life you save may be your own for the second time. i read it along with all the others stories rather quickly the first time and so did not realy think about any of them too deeply. today though, i was imagining a nice southern life where i just lived in the middle of nowhere with someone i loved and had no responsibilites, and knew flannery o'connor would ease this desire, and so i searched for the story about the mother and the daughter and the man who came to live there.
o'connor's stories are interesting for me to find meaning in because i am an atheist, however, i find meaning in people's belief in god even if i don't have one myself.
that said, i think the overall motive of this story was exploring the differences between a body and a spirit. tom says, "the body, lady, is like a house: it don't go anywhere; but the spirit, lady, is like an automobile: always on the move, always..."
this is interesting because it seems as thought tom has quite a spirit, as he described his life as always being on the move. however, he steals a car in the end, and comments that he had never been able to afford one, insinuating that a spirit is something you buy. this relates back to tom claiming that man is made for more than money; it is a stark contradiction.
also, at the end, he starts bawling about leaving his mother. one can presume that he left his mother at his home, and according to his philosophy, this is alright because he still has his spirit. this refers back to his body i think. he left his home, his metaphorical "body", perhaps because his body was not complete.
i do not know everything i think about the story, but i think i gather some sort of hint of a need for both a home and a spirit--at least in this life. the spirit should be kept whole in order to live past the human life, but in this life, there should also be a home, and a body, that need to be cared for. with the damage of his body, perhaps he thought he didn't need the home, while later realizing that he still did?
i don't know. but i almost wish to be like tom. i want to travel like that. i hope i keep both arms though.
7 - Priscilla
also, laws tend to cater to the physical body, because that is the only thing everyone can agree we have, which is why they did not satisfy tom.
8 - Zarrin
I think that the reason why the old woman and her daughter have the same name is to indicate that Mrs Crater does not want her daughter to think for herself.
Although Shiftlet's behaviour is bad and selfish, it may perhaps have also been advantageous to all. In the end, Lucynell Jr is rid of both her selfish mother and uncaring husband. Shiftlet acted on his selfish desires, but may have also saved Lucynell from a terrible life (without intending to).
I had been wondering: Did Lucynell pretend to fall asleep? (to be rid of Shiftlet?) Who is the real manipulator? Who is the real victim?
One of the theses for the story: individual perceptions often define reality; one person's reality may be different from another's (different viewpoints).
9 - george
why do they have the same name
10 - Louis
i do not understand this short story one bit.
11 - Ian
I had to think this one over with my mom but I think I've got it. Maybe. For starters, think of Lucynell (daughter) as a symbol for good. The mother makes flamboiant remarks to her never letting someone take her daughter, a roundabout way of attracting Tom to her. Tom talks of how he can fix up her car, a roundabout way for him to steal a ride to Mobile. In the end, both seem to get their wish: The mother marries off her daughter and Tom steals the car. However, they have both truly failed, because in all their petty desires, they abandoned good and kindness.